The purpose of this research is to examine circumstances under which euthanasia might be morally permissible. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context for consideration of the morality of the issue, to discuss the basis for advocacy of one moral stance over another, and then to assess the relative strength of arguments for and against the stance taken.
Perhaps because of the high media profile of one Jack Kevorkian of Michigan, a compelling need to understand these aspects has emerged in recent years. However, the issue of euthanasia is neither new nor simple. Indeed, one difficulty with discussing euthanasia from a moral standpoint alone is that moral debate overlaps into law, medicine, and public policy. Another difficulty is one of definition. Euthanasia, derived from the Greek combining forms eu meaning good and thanatos meaning death, has historically been identified with the mercy killing of hopelessly sick human beings and animals. However, in the current period, under the general category of euthanasia fall a number of discrete end-of-life terms, which are used in a variety of ways. Moral differences in definition may seem subtle, but precisely for that reason, they are not insignificant. They are an aspect of a debate that is not resolved legally and medically, chiefly because it is not resolved morally.
In a 1994 report by the American Medical Association's (AMA) Council on Ethical and Judicial affairs, euthanasia is the name given to a physician's administering to a patient some means of death, such as "death-causing drug or other agent" (Glasson 91). AMA's definition of assisted suicide, associated with such figures as Kevorkian and as a practical matter having more to do with law and medicine than morality, is the situation in which a physician gives a patient either means or knowledge to commit suicide but does not perform the act. Palliative treatment is the name given to the act of providing incre...