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Moral Aspects of Euthanasia

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 increasing drug dosages for pain relief that may have the so-called double effect of ending the patient's life. AMA distinguishes between these definitions and passive euthanasia, in which doctor, patient, or "patient's proxy" in the form of living will, durable power of attorney, or other advanced health-care directive, authorizes withdrawal or withholding of life-support treatments when disadvantage outweighs advantage (Glasson 93-4, et passim).

The National Association of Social Workers uses the term passive euthanasia to descri...

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Moral Aspects of Euthanasia. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 03:16, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1712063.html