Social Issue: Euthanasia

The Role of Active and Voluntary Euthanasia in Human Life Humans and other animals’ behavior in life include the instinctive avoidance of feeling pain that is any kind of pain that may impair or deteriorate quality of life. If a human being cannot avoid his or her own suffering caused by incurable disease, the sufferer cannot continue functioning in life. The dignity of a person is threatened as one is condemned to go through unbearable and incomprehensive pain. The issue arises when a physician, whose task is to sustain life as long as possible, is confronted with a person’s request for assistance in terminating his or her life. The conflict lies within the illegal status of assisted death in most countries. The confrontation with Euthanasia could occur unexpectedly in anyone’s life. Diseases are diagnosed and accidents happen daily with more or less adverse outcomes; such calamities are likely to arouse some thought about assisted dying or about Euthanasia which is the widely used term. Euthanasia leads to many questions on whether it is a valid option for humanity to improve their quality of life by avoiding prolonged pain. Euthanasia literally translated form Greek means “good death”. The core of euthanasia is the acceptance of one’s own death (Lewy 3). In medical terms euthanasia is defined as the intentional termination of life requested by the individual in order to enable a painless and eased passage into death. A widely distinguished type of euthanasia is assisted suicide. The difference is understood in the fact that the individual requesting assisted death is provided with a lethal drug that will be consumed by the individual autonomously instead of having the physician inject the legal drug (Lewy 8). Furthermore, euthanasia is usually divided into active and passive euthanasia. Active euthanasia is practiced directly by a physician using medication to anticipate death. Executing euthanasia passively is the act of