Euthanasia, also
mercy killing, practice of ending a life so as to release an individual from an
incurable disease or intolerable suffering. The term is sometimes used
generally to refer to an easy or painless death. Voluntary euthanasia involves
a request by the dying patient or that person's legal representative. Passive
or negative euthanasia involves not doing something to prevent death-that is,
allowing someone to die; active or positive euthanasia involves taking
deliberate action to cause a death.
Euthanasia has
been accepted both legally and morally in various forms in many societies. In
ancient Greece and Rome it was permissible in some situations to help others
die.
With the rise of
organized religion, euthanasia became morally and ethically abhorrent.
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all hold human life sacred and condemn
euthanasia in any form.
Following
traditional religious principles, Western laws have generally considered the
act of helping someone to die a form of homicide subject to legal sanctions.
Even a passive withholding of help to prevent death has frequently been
severely punished. Euthanasia, however, occurs secretly in all societies,
including those in which it is held to be immoral and illegal.
The Ethics of
Euthanasia
Organizations
supporting the legalization of voluntary euthanasia were established in Great
Britain in 1935 and in the United States in 1938. They have gained some public
support, but so far they have been unable to achieve their goal in either
nation. In the last few decades, Western laws against passive and voluntary
euthanasia have slowly been eased, although serious moral and legal questions
still exist.
Critics point to
the so-called euthanasia committees in Nazi Germany that were empowered to
condemn and execute anyone found to be a burden to the state. This instance of
abuse of the power of life and death has long served as a warning to some
against allowing the practice of euthanasia.
The
proeuthanasia, or "right to die," movement has received considerable
encouragement by the passage of laws in 40 states by 1990, which allow legally
competent individuals to make "living wills." These wills empower and
instruct doctors to withhold life-support systems if the individuals become
terminally ill.
Medical Ethics
The medical
profession has generally been caught in the middle of the social controversies
that rage over euthanasia. Government and religious groups as well as the
medical profession itself agree that doctors are not required to use
"extraordinary means" to prolong the life of the terminally ill. What
constitutes extraordinary means is usually left to the discretion of the
patient's family. Modern technological advances, such as respirators and
artificial kidney machines, have made it possible to keep persons alive for
long periods of time even when they are permanently unconscious or irrevocably
brain damaged. Proponents of euthanasia, however, believe that prolonging life
in this way may cause great suffering to the patient and the family. In addition,
certain life-support systems are so expensive that they cannot be provided for
all potential patients.
Some opponents of
euthanasia have feared that the increasing success that doctors have had in
transplanting human organs might lead to abuse of the practice of euthanasia.
It is now generally understood, however, that physicians will not violate the
rights of the dying donor in order to help preserve the life of the organ
recipient.
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