The Idea of Euthanasia
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Society faces a number of issues of life and death, and because of developments in medicine and technology, these issues become more difficult all the time. We can keep people alive when in the past they might have died, but should we? Because we have to ask this question, the idea of euthanasia has also become more important--should we "pull the plug" on people whose quality of life will never be "normal" again, who may be suffering great pain, or who cannot continue to live without being attached to machines? Recently, Pope John Paul II stated that we are creating a "culture of death" by deciding that there are times when euthanasia is acceptable, and he instead believes there is no time when "pulling the plug" is acceptable. An absolute position ignores the reality of human suffering for both the patient and his or her family and makes both agree to allow suffering as something that has to be endured. In truth, the pope's position is not completely rigid, but he is not clear as to when he would be rigid and when he would not. The problem is that we have learned to cope with one aspect of our medical problems without being able to carry it through as far as we wish. As noted, medical science today can prolong life but may not be able to restore full functioning to the sufferer, in which case the human suffering involved is also being prolonged: When technology becomes an end in itself, unduly prolonging the dying process, it creates a paradox in which human dign
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viewpoint eventually predominates, society will have validated what amounts to involuntary passive euthanasia: An individual who wants to go on living a "life" that most people regard as unlivable will not be permitted to do so.
Such a state of affairs seems undemocratic, if not immoral. Yet, if medical resources become scarcer and more expensive than they already are, steps will have to be taken to ration health care. (Helga Wanglie's hospital bills were over $800,000.) Should this dark day dawn and many people believe that it already has, and that we are rapidly approaching the moment of high
noon physicians simply will not be able to provide patients with treatment, especially with so called futile treatment, simply because patients want it.
VARIETIES AND ETHICS OF ACTIVE EUTHANASIA
If treatment decisions based on determinations of futility are controversial, active euthanasia, defined as the taking of
immediate, active steps to end a person's life (administering a lethal injection, for example), is even more controversial. As with passive euthanasia, there are three types of active
euthanasia: voluntary, nonvoluntary, and involuntary. In
voluntary active euthanasia, competent adult patients request that their p
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 8934
Approximate Pages = 36 (250 words per page)
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