Background information: Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering. Euthanasia is categorized in different ways, which include voluntary, non-voluntary, or involuntary. Voluntary euthanasia is legal in some countries and U.S. states. Non-voluntary euthanasia is illegal in all countries. Involuntary euthanasia is usually considered murder.
Study the following sources to find out whether euthanasia should be legalised in Singapore.
Source A
Source B
Provenance: Yesterday(Sunday nov 9 2008), the National Council of Churches of Singapore, the umbrella body for some 200 Christian churches and organisations, issued a statement denouncing the act of euthanasia.
(Euthanasia) is societal killing; it will have grave implications on the way we think about ourselves and about matters of life, and open the door to serious abuses that would threaten the rights and dignity of persons and society. It maintains that palliative care is the answer for the terminally ill, as patients with inadequate symptom and pain control would request for euthanasia.
Source C
Anish Kumar Hazra, a Raffles Institution student giving his opinion on euthanasia
The right to life is wholly the property of the individual who is living that life and hence he has the right to relinquish his property. For every right, there exists a converse. We are endowed with the right to speech, but we also have the right not to speak. We have the right to freedom of movement, but also the right to stay where we are. If the converse exists for all other rights, why does it not exist for the right to life? The philosophically consistent stance to take is that (like all other rights), the right to life does have its converse – the right to death. The individual is the owner of his life. He exercises all bodily functions associated with his life and is, often, the sole determinant of what