Mercy killing or Euthanasia is nothing but the practice of killing a person or animal, in a painless or minimally painful way, for merciful reasons, usually to end suffering of a patient before death. In wider sense it depicts assisting sufferers to commit sudden death rather than suffering from long, in particular physician-assisted suicide. This decision is based on the patients’ rights and dignity, doctors’ rights, religious beliefs, society’s views, morality and other resolutions available. BRIEF HISTORY Euthanasia comes from the Greek words. Eu (good) and Thanatonis (death) means Good Death or Gentle and Easy Death.
The first recorded use of the word was by Suetoniusin describing the death of Augustus Caeser who died peacefully kissing his wife, Livia after uttering his last words. Withdrawal or with-holding treatment was practiced in history; the correct term for this is orthothanasia which means passive death. During ancient time, Hippocrates created a Oath called Hippocratic Oath which is a manuscript that guide the people to learn medicine in a honest and moral way. He quoted “I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel. ” ~ Hippocrates, Father of Modern Medicine (400 BC).
“I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan…” ~ Original Hippocratic Oath However, this Oath has been abused, like what Plato said “Mentally and physically ill person should be left to death”. They too put a death to Socrates who are a great philosopher that a great contribution in the field of ethic by giving him a bowl of poison (hemlock-based liquid make) – they believed that he corrupt the youth mind during that time. From time to time this concept has undergoes some changes. In the 1300s, suicide as well as helping people to kill them was considered as a criminal act.
In the 1930s euthanasia was practiced for first time by German physicians. In the 20th century, lot of organizations was formed to address the concerns regarding euthanasia. – Voluntary Euthanasia Society. TYPES OF EUTHANASIA There are 5 types of euthanasia: Passive Euthanasia Passive euthanasia” is usually defined as withdrawing medical treatment with the deliberate intention of causing the patient’s death. For example, if a patient requires kidney dialysis to survive, and the doctors disconnect the dialysis machine, the patient will presumably die fairly soon.
Perhaps the classic example of passive euthanasia is a “do not resuscitate order. Normally if a patient has a heart attack or similar sudden interruption in life functions, medical staff will attempt to revive them. If they make no such effort but simply stand and watch as the patient dies, this is passive euthanasia. Active Euthanasia Active euthanasia involves causing the death of a person through a direct action, in response to a request from that person “Active euthanasia” is taking specific steps to cause the patient’s death, such as injecting the patient with poison.
In practice, this is usually an overdose of pain-killers or sleeping pills. Voluntary Euthanasia Voluntary euthanasia is when the patient requests that action be taken to end his life, or that life-saving treatment be stopped, with full knowledge that this will lead to his death. Involuntary Euthanasia The term involuntary euthanasia is used to describe the killing of a person who has not explicitly requested aid in dying. This term is most often used with respect to patients who are in a persistent vegetative state and who probably will never recover consciousness. Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS).
Somewhat of a hybrid between passive and active euthanasia is physician-assisted suicide (PAS), also known as voluntary passive euthanasia. In this situation, a physician supplies information and/or the means of committing suicide (e. g. , a prescription for lethal dose of sleeping pills, or a supply of carbon monoxide gas) to a person, so that that individual can successfully terminate his or her own life. Why Euthanasia is a Moral Act? Personal Autonomy Since biological life (being a human being) is not the real, moral issue, then life is not intrinsically valuable or sacred simply because it is human life.
The important thing is that one has biographical life — and this involves a person’s ability to state, formulate, and pursue autonomously chosen interests, desires, and so forth. If a person autonomously chooses to end his or her life or have someone else assist him or her in doing so, then it is morally permissible. One should be free to do as one chooses as long as no harm is done to others. Suicide is Not Illegal During the ancient time, suicide is considered immoral and it is consider a crime. In ancient time, a person who had committed suicide (without the approval of the state) was denied the honours of a normal burial.
More severely, the dead person’s body was drawn through the streets, face down, and then hung or thrown on a garbage heap. Additionally, all of the person’s property was confiscated. Today, a person who has successfully committed suicide is beyond the reach of the law. There can still be legal consequences in the cases of treatment of the corpse or the fate of the person’s property or family members. The associated matters of assisting a suicide and attempting suicide have also been dealt with by the laws of some jurisdictions. Double Effect.
If doing something morally good has a morally bad side-effect it’s ethically OK to do it providing the bad side-effect wasn’t intended. This is true even if you foresaw that the bad effect would probably happen. The principle is used to justify the case where a doctor gives drugs to a patient to relieve distressing symptoms even though he knows doing this may shorten the patient’s life. This is because the doctor is not aiming directly at killing the patient – the bad result of the patient’s death is a side-effect of the good result of reducing the patient’s pain.
Many doctors use this doctrine to justify the use of high doses of drugs such as morphine for the purpose of relieving suffering in terminally-ill patients even though they know the drugs are likely to cause the patient to die sooner. Public Support It is clearly stated that the statistic in South Australia 2007 shows that 81% of respondent were in favour of legalising euthanasia. Why does mankind make such decision and is it moral? If an action promotes the best interests of everyone concerned and violates no one’s rights, the libertarian view maintains, then that action is morally acceptable.
In some cases, active euthanasia promotes the best interests of everyone concerned and violates no one’s rights. Therefore, in those cases active euthanasia is morally acceptable. Here is an article from Reader’s digest – lines from a person: From moral principles, it is argued, if I don’t want someone to apply a rule to me, I shouldn’t apply it to others. Similarly, if I want someone to apply a rule to me, I ought to be willing to apply it to others. Now, suppose I were given a choice between two ways to die.
First, I could die quietly and without pain, at the age of eighty, from a fatal injection. Or, second, I could choose to die at eighty-plus-a-few-days of an affliction so painful that for those few days before death I would be reduced to howling like a dog, with my family standing helplessly by. Why Euthanasia is an Immoral Act? Sanctity of Human Life Mostly all religions are against euthanasia and each of the religion has their own reasons. For Christian, they are strongly against euthanasia because Christianity requires them to respect every human being. “Thou shall not kill”.
Refusing aggressive medical treatment is morally acceptable in the Catholic and assisted suicide is morally wrong. For Islam, they believe that life is a gift from God (Allah) and we should not reject it (kill it). Euthanasia is a good example which is strictly not allow in Islam. Same things go to abortion except it will affect the mother life then it is morally acceptable. For Buddhism, their ideas about euthanasia are not unanimous because Buddha didn’t teach about it. Most Buddhists think that euthanasia and suicide are wrong voluntarily. Instead, there are meditation and pain killing drugs.