Brief Summary Of Euthanasia And Assisted Suicide

Euthanasia – Summary

General information
Euthanasia is the act of consciously ending a person’s life because of terrible suffering that can be caused by incurable cancer. The word itself comes from Greek and means “good death” which describes its procedure pretty well. Assisted suicide means to assist or encourage another person who has already decided to commit suicide. Seen from the legal position, both of these acts are illegal under English law. Depending on the circumstances, the maximum penalty for euthanasia can be up to life imprisonment. Assisted suicide is punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment.

Types of euthanasia
There are different ways to classify types of euthanasia. Firstly, active euthanasia can be distinguished from
passive euthanasia. By active euthanasia, the concerned person is injected with sedatives from someone else while passive euthanasia causes death by withholding necessary things to maintain life, e.g. antibiotics. Voluntary euthanasia, non-voluntary euthanasia and involuntary euthanasia are the different types to describe a person’s own attitude towards death. While voluntary euthanasia is regarded as a conscious decision to end one’s life that is supported by another person, patients are unable to make a decision on their own and so someone else gives their consent to kill the ill person by non-voluntary euthanasia. In contrast to these types, involuntary euthanasia means to kill a person against their expressed wishes and this process is almost always regarded as murder.

Other countries
The only countries where euthanasia is legal are Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. Usually, the patient is given an overdose of muscle relaxants or sedatives that cause a coma and lead to death. Nevertheless, the concerned people have to make an active and voluntary decision to end their life and they have to be regarded as incurable because there is no improvement seen in their condition by professionals.

Arguments for and against
Supporters of euthanasia and assisted suicide state two main arguments which are the ethical and pragmatic argument.
The ethical argument says that people should have the right to control their own body and choose when and how they want to die. The pragmatic argument is that forms of passive euthanasia already exist but they simply are not named as such. An example of this would be palliative sedation where people, who are experiencing extreme suffering, are put to sleep using sedative medication. Therefore, euthanasia and assisted suicide might as well be legalized by society even though opponents state various reasons against these
acts.
For instance, they use the religious argument that says such practices cannot be justified because God is the only one who has the right to end a human life and consequently, committing euthanasia or assisting in suicide is sinful. Moreover, they add the argument that society will change its attitude towards involuntary euthanasia if voluntary euthanasia is allowed by law. Considering doctor-patient relationships, causing death could become a routine process and patients could lose confidence in their doctors. Additionally, they could become distrustful of their doctor’s efforts because patients might think their doctors do not want to take responsibility for a more complex case. Some alternatives state that no person should ever suffer unbearably for any reason because if they are given the right care and environment, they should be able to die in a natural way.

Alternatives at death’s door
Palliative care is regarded as an option to euthanasia and the aim of the treatment is to alleviate a person’s suffering.
Additionally, a good palliative care unit helps to regard death as a normal process and family members are supported by accomplished psychologists during the patient’s illness and afterwards, in bereavement. The system of palliative care would rather say “kill the pain” instead of “kill the patient”, as Dr Richard Hillier, chairman of the Association for Palliative Care, explained the way in which palliative care specialists dealt with death. But still, the Millennium Debate of the Age stated that they contended to let individuals be the ones to choose for their own how they want eventually end their
lives.