FREE ESSAY ON MORALITY AND PRACTICALITY OF EUTHANASIA

MORALITY AND PRACTICALITY OF EUTHANASIA

Morality and Practicality of Euthanasia
Euthanasia is defined by The American Heritage Dictionary as the action of killing 
an individual for reasons considered to be merciful (Leonesio 292). Here, killing is 
described as the physical action where one individual actively kills another. Euthanasia
is 
tolerated in the medical field under certain circumstances when a patient is suffering 
profoundly and death is inevitable. The word euthanasia comes from the Greek eu, 
good, and thanatos, death, literally, good death; however, the word euthanasia is 
much more difficult to define. Each person may define euthanasia differently. Who is to 
decide whether a death is good or not? It is generally taken today to mean that act which
a 
health care professional carries out to help his/her patient achieve a good death. While

growing up, each of us learns a large number of rules of conduct. Which rules we learn 
will depend on the kind of society we live in and the parents and the friends we have. 
Sometimes we learn a rule without understanding its point. In most cases this may work 
out, for the rule may be designed to cover ordinary circumstances, but when faced with 
unusual situations, we may be in trouble. This situation is the same with moral rules. 
Without understanding the rules, we may come to think of it as a mark of virtue that we 
will not consider making exceptions to. We need a way of understanding the morality 
against killing. The point is not to preserve every living thing possible, but to protect
the 
interests of individuals to have the right of choice to die.
Firstly, there are ethical guidelines for euthanasia. If the following guidelines are
met, 
then euthanasia is considered acceptable. The person must be a mature adult. This is 
essential. The exact age will depend on the individual but the person should not be a
minor 
who would come under quite different laws. Secondly, the person must have clearly made 
a considered decision. An individual has the ability now to indicate this with a living
will 
(which applies only to disconnection of life supports) and can also, in today's more open

and tolerant society, freely discuss the option of euthanasia with health-care
professionals, 
family, lawyers, etc. The euthanasia must not be carried out at the first knowledge of a

life-threatening illness, and reasonable medical help must have been sought to cure or at

least slow down the terminal disease. It is when the fight is clearly hopeless and the
agony, 
physical and mental, is unbearable that a final exit is an option. The treating physician
must 
have been informed, asked to be involved, and his or her response been taken into 
account. The physician's response will vary depending on the circumstances, of course,
but 
they should advise their patients that a rational suicide is not a crime. It is best to
inform 
the doctor and hear his or her response. For example, the patient might be mistaken. 
Perhaps the diagnosis has been misheard or misunderstood. Patients raising this subject 
were met with a discreet silence or meaningless remarks in the past but in today's more 
accepting climate most physicians will discuss potential end of life actions. The person

must have a Will disposing of his or her worldly effects and money. ( Docker)
This shows evidence of a tidy mind, an orderly life, and forethought, all things which 
are important to an acceptance of rational suicide. The person must have made plans to 
die that do not involve others in criminal liability or leave them with guilty feelings.

Assistance in suicide is a crime in most places, although the laws are gradually
changing, 
and very few cases ever come before the courts. The only well known instance of a 
lawsuit concerning this is the doctor-assisted suicide of Dr. Kevorkian. The person must

leave a note saying exactly why he or she is taking their life. This statement in writing

removes the chance of misunderstandings or blame. It also demonstrates that the 
departing person is taking full responsibility for the action. These are all guidelines
for 
allowing a euthanasia to take place. By this, I mean the doctor is involved in the
patient's 
decision and actively performs the euthanasia. 
The common argument in support of euthanasia is one that is called The argument 
of mercy. Patients sometimes suffer pain that can hardly be comprehended by those who 
have not experienced it. The suffering would be so terrible that people wouldn't want to

read or think about; and recoil in horror from its description. The argument for mercy 
simply states: Euthanasia is morally justified because it ends suffering. Terminally ill

patients are people who will never attain a personal existence, never experience life as
a 
net value, and/or never achieve a minimal level of independence. The moral issue 
regarding euthanasia is not affected by whether more could have been done for a patient;

but whether euthanasia is allowable if it is the only alternative to torment. 
Courts and moral philosophers alike have long accepted the proposition that people 
have a right to refuse medical treatment they find painful or difficult to bear, even if
that 
refusal means certain death. Individuals have the right to decide about their own lives
and 
deaths. What more basic right is there than to decide if you're going to live? There is 
none. A person under a death sentence who's being kept alive, through so called heroic 
measures certainly has a fundamental right to say, Enough's enough. The treatment's 
worse than the disease. Leave me alone. Let me die!. Ironically, those who deny the 
terminally ill this right do so out of a sense of high morality. Don't they see that, in
denying 
the gravely ill and suffering the right to release themselves from pain, they commit the

greatest crime? (Burnell)
Are there no conditions when life is meaningless and should be quietly ended? If a 
person is subject to pain that won't stop as a result of a disease that can't be cured,
must 
he or she suffer that pain as long as possible when there are gentle ways of putting an
end 
to life? If a person suffers from a disease that deprives him or her of all memory and 
makes him or her a helpless lump of flesh that may live on for years.
We spend more than a billion dollars a day for health car while our teachers are 
underpaid, and our industrial plants are rusty. This should not continue. There is 
something fundamentally unsustainable about a society that moves its basic value 
producing industries overseas yet continues to manufacture artificial hearts at home. We

have money to give smokers heart transplants but no money to retool out steel mills. We 
train more doctors and lawyers than we need but fewer teachers. On any given day, 30 to 
40 percent of the hospital beds in America are empty, but our classrooms are overcrowded

and our transportation systems are deteriorating. We are great at treating sick people,
but 
we are not that great at treating a sick economy. And we are not succeeding in 
international trade. When you really look around and try to find industries the United 
States is succeeding in, you discover that they are very few and far between. (Docker)
The period of suffering can be shortened. If you have ever been in a terminal cancer 
ward, It's grim but enlightening. Anyone who's been there can know how much people can 
suffer before they die. And not just physically. The emotional, even spiritual, agony is

often worse. Today our medical hardware is so sophisticated that the period of suffering

can be extended beyond the limit of human endurance. What's the point of allowing 
someone a few more months or days or hours of so-called life when death is inevitable? 
There's no point. In fact, it's downright inhumane. When someone under such conditions 
asks to be allowed to die, it's far more humane to honor that request than to deny it. 
(Lodle)
There is no way we are going to come to grips with this problem until we also look 
at some of these areas that aren't going to go away . One of the toughest of these is
what 
Victor Fuchs called flat-of-the-curve medicine- those medical procedures which are the 
highest in cost but achieve little or no improvement in health status. He says that they

must be reduced or eliminated. We must demand that professional societies and licensing 
authorities establish some norms and standards for diagnostic and therapeutic practice
that 
encompass both costs and medicine. We're going to have to come up with some sort of 
concept of cost-effective medicine. (Docker)
People who oppose euthanasia have argued constantly doctors have often been 
known to miscalculate or to make mistakes. Death is final and irreversible; in some cases

doctors have wrongly made diagnostic errors during a check-up. Patients being told they 
have cancer or AIDS, by their doctors' mistake, have killed themselves to avoid the pain.

Those opposing euthanasia have also argued that practicing euthanasia prevents the 
development of new cures and rules out unpracticed methods in saving a life. 
Also, there is always the possibility that an experimental procedure or a hitherto
untried 
technique will pull us through. We should at least keep this option open, but euthanasia

closes it off. They might decide that the patient would simply be 'better off dead' and 
take the steps necessary to make that come about. This attitude would then carry over to

their dealings with patients less seriously ill. The result would be an overall decline
in 
quality of medical care. (EUTHANASIA)
If euthanasia had been legal 40 years ago, it is quite possible that there would be no 
hospice movement today. The improvement in terminal care is a direct result of attempts 
made to minimize suffering. If that suffering had been extinguished by extinguishing the

patients who bore it, then we may never have known the advances in the control of pain, 
nausea, breathlessness, and other terminal symptoms that the last twenty years have seen.

Some diseases that were terminal a few decades ago are now routinely cured by newly 
developed treatments. Earlier acceptance of euthanasia might well have undercut the 
urgency of the research efforts which led to the discovery of those treatments. If we 
accept euthanasia now, we may well delay by decades the discovery of effective 
treatments for those diseases that are now terminal. (Burnell )
Once any group of human beings is considered unworthy of living, what is to stop our 
society from extending this cruelty to other groups? If the mongoloid is to be deprived
of 
his right to life, what of the blind and deaf? and What about of the cripple, the
retarded, 
and the senile? How long after acceptance of voluntary euthanasia will we hear the calls

for non-voluntary euthanasia? There are thousands of comatose or demented patients 
sustained by little more than good nursing care. They are an enormous financial and
social 
burden. How long will the advocates of euthanasia be arguing that we should assist them 
in dying. 
Perhaps the most disturbing risk of all is posed by the growing concern over medical 
costs. Euthanasia is, after all, a very cheap service. The cost of a dose of barbiturates
and 
curare and the few hours in a hospital bed that it takes them to act is minute compared
to 
the massive bills incurred by many patients in the last weeks and months of their lives.

Already in Britain, There is a serious under- provision of expensive therapies like renal

dialysis and intensive care, with the result that many otherwise preventable deaths
occur. 
Legalizing euthanasia would save substantial financial resources which could be diverted

to more useful treatments. These economic concerns already exert pressure to accept 
euthanasia, and, if accepted, they will inevitability tend to enlarge the category of
patients 
for whom euthanasia is permitted... (EUTHANASIA)
It must never be forgotten that doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators have 
personal lives, homes and families, or that they are something more than just doctors, 
nurses, or hospital administrators. They are citizens and a significant part of the
society 
around them. We should be very worried about what the institutionalization of euthanasia

will do to society, in general , how will we regard murderers? (IAETF)
Another side effect might be a an increasing fear of hospitals. Despite all the efforts 
of health education, it seems there will always be a transference of the patient's fear
of 
illness from the illness to the doctors and hospitals who treat it. This fear is still
very real 
and leads to large numbers of late presentations of illnesses that might have been cured
if 
only the patients had sought help earlier. To institutionalize euthanasia, however
carefully, 
would undoubtedly magnify all the latent fear of doctors and hospitals harbored by the 
public. The inevitable result would be a rise in late presentations and, therefore, 
preventable deaths.
As with any other system, certain people may try to use euthanasia for the wrong 
reasons. Both the Dutch and the California proposals list sets of precautions designed to

prevent abuses. They acknowledge that such are a possibility. The history of legal 
loopholes is not a cheering one. Abuses might arise when the patient is wealthy and an 
inheritance is at stake, when the doctor has made mistakes in diagnosis and treatment and

hopes to avoid detection, when insurance coverage for treatment costs is about to expire,

and in a host of other circumstances.(EUTHANASIA)
Both sets of proposals seek to limit the influence of the patient's family on the 
decision, again acknowledging the risks posed by such influences. Families have all kinds

of subtle ways, conscious and unconscious, of putting pressure on a patient to request 
euthanasia and relive them of the financial and social burden of care. Many patients 
already feel guilty for imposing burdens on those on those who care for them, even when 
the families are happy to bear the burden. To provide an avenue for the discharge of that

guilt in a request for euthanasia is to risk putting to death a great many patients who
do 
not wish to die. (IAETF)
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is one of the oldest and most 
common moral proverbs, which applies to everyone alike. When people try to decide 
whether certain actions are morally correct, they must ask whether they would be willing

for everyone to follow that rule, in similar circumstances. I have tried to take a
objective 
look at both sides, but have found this to be a very complex issue. Not having face such

problem I am siding with not supporting euthanasia, may we forever go on. All of life is
a 
struggle and a gamble. At the gaming table of life, nobody ever knows what the outcome 
will be. Indeed, humans are noblest when they persist in the face of the inevitable. 
Kevorkian's current mailing address in prison, if you should never need it. 
Dr.Jack Kevorkian
Prisoner number 284797 
Oaks Correctional Facility
EASTLAKE MI 49626
U S A
(DeathNet) 
Bibliography
MFLA