Ethical Struggles With Euthanasia
Ethical Struggles with Euthanasia
To understand the ethical struggles faced with euthanasia a person must first know the true meaning of the word. The Greek language defines it as a “Good Death”, but many people don’t see it in such a good light. They want to associate the word with the practices of Dr. Kevorkian and his physician-assisted suicides and the case of Terry Schiavo. The truth is that there are many different types of Euthanasia. Webster’s dictionary defines these types of Euthanasia as, “the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, n.d.). This definition can become very complicated if you don’t break it into two different types of euthanasia. These two types are active and passive. The active and passive types of euthanasia have very different meanings and multiple voluntary statuses.
“The distinction between active and passive euthanasia is thought to be crucial for medical ethics. The idea is that it is permissible, at least in some cases, to withhold treatment and allow a patient to die, but it is never per-missible to take any direct action designed to kill the pa-tient” (Rachels, 1996). The active euthanasia process involves taking specific steps to cause a person’s death. This is normally only done when terminally ill patients can no longer handle the pain associated with his or her disease. A lethal injection of poison that has a high content of opium is the preferred method. This method is often associated with physician assisted suicide and the practices of Dr. Kevorkian. He gained national media coverage in the 1990’s offering to kill terminal ill for money. He claimed to help kill over 130 people before he was convicted of murder and sent to prison 25 years. He was released from prison early for good conduct on June, 1 2007. Dr. Kevorkian only served 8 years of his...
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