Voluntary Killing

Song 2 Table of Contents

Introduction............................................................................................................................4 Background Information........................................................................................................4 Literature Review...................................................................................................................5 Analysis..................................................................................................................................7 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................7 Bibliography ..........................................................................................................................8

Song 3 Outline

I. Introduction II. Background Info III. Literature Review A. Kathleen Kingsbury B. Alessio Vinci C. Steven Ertelt D. Patricia King E. Dana Smith IV. Analysis V. Conclusion VI. Bibliography

Song 4 Donna Song Mr. Coyner Euthanasia 21 May 2012 Voluntary Killing Euthanasia comes straightforwardly commencing from the Greek language, eu meaning goodly or well, and thanatos meaning death. So technically euthanasia means good death. However, many people all over the world do not believe that it is an ethical way of ending a persons life. Despite the fact that this action was named goodly death, more people think it is wrong, than the people who think it is okay. Is it really moral to perform euthanasia on people? What about people who are in a coma? Euthanasia is used on people who are sure they will die, people who are suffering from too much pain, and people who have been in a coma for a very long time, and doctors think they wont be able to get back up, consciously. The research question for this paper is: Is it ethical or moral to perform euthanasia on coma patients? Background Information Euthanasia is also widely known as assisted suicide, physician-assisted suicide, doctorassisted dying, and sometimes-called mercy killing (Nordqvist). Euthanasia has been a very controversial topic all around the world ever since. There are two different classifications of euthanasia: voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary euthanasia is when the patients directly chooses, and involuntary euthanasia is when another person decides, usually a close family member or any other guardian, because the patient is mentally and physically incapable of choosing themselves. Along with this, there are two different procedural classifications of euthanasia: passive and active. Passive euthanasia is when life-sustaining treatments are
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Song 5 withheld (Nordqvist). Which can be taking off a feeding tube, not taking medications, or any other life support. Active euthanasia is when something is physically done to end the patients life, such as giving them some type of poison, or drug that is painless, but fatal. Both of these are commonly defined to be unethical. Coma patients usually stay in a coma from hours to days. However, this is not the only case. In some situations, patients can be in a coma for a few years. This is when the idea of euthanasia might be considered as a possible solution. Literature Review According to an article written by Kathleen Kingsbury in TIMEHealth, a former governor of Washington, Booth Gardner, thinks euthanasia is ethical and it should be legal in all states and countries. He talks about his experiences as a patient and the time when he wanted to end his life if he could, because the conditions were too painful for him to overcome. However, euthanasia was illegal, so he had to go through the painful times. More than 80% of American adults agree with Gardner (Kingsbury). He also believes that no one should be denied the choice to end their life if they wanted to. So basically, Booth believes euthanasia is ethical because it is part of our human rights to choose when we want to end our lives. In another article called Comatose woman in euthanasia debate dies, Alessio Vinci talks about a woman who was in a coma for about 17 years, and the debate that was going on about it. The article is focused on people who think euthanasia is unethical. They believe that the patient can always be improving without them knowing, and that no one has the authority to take her life from her. The Prime Minister of Italy mentioned that they should do everything possible to stop a person from dying. Therefore, most of the people in Italys government think that euthanasia is not ethical because no one has the right to take his/her life away from him/her.
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Song 6 A third writer, Steven Ertelt, talks about a 25-year-old man who got into a car crash and was in a coma for 18 days after that. He talked about how the doctors highly suggested euthanasia, but his parents believed that it was unethical. Some of the doctors told Mom and Dad to just pull the plug, Monk said, upset to learn that now that hes recovering from his injuries. Doctors are there to heal, not to give up (Ertelt). So like Booth Gardner, Monk and his parents think that euthanasia is unethical because of the fact that you can never know if or when the patient is recovering, so if you perform euthanasia, you might be just murdering the person for no good reason. The fourth writer, Patricia King, says that euthanasia is not ethical because it is the doctors job to do anything to keep their patients alive. She says that through studies, she found out that many Americans - particularly the poor, the disabled, the elderly and members of racial and ethnic minorities - worry that if assisted suicide becomes widely available they will be viewed as throwaway people (King). She also personally feels that if treatment is available, the patients should continue to take it, since it is a very big advantage for them. Later King also states that it is unethical also because euthanasia treats patients without respect and dignity. In a different article, the author, Phil B., also shows that euthanasia is not ethical. He states that euthanasia is a voluntary decision of the patient, but when euthanasia is necessary, the patient is very rarely in a state where they can actually think properly. And so, he strongly believes that it is the patients choice and it would be morally wrong to let someone else decide to end the patients life. The last idea comes from Dana Smith, who wrote an article called, When is euthanasia an ethical option? Unlike the other authors that I have researched, she took both sides. She said that euthanasia takes the satisfaction and joy from the lives of the family members. It might seem
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Song 7 that its better for them to just end the patients life, but the families live with that small hope everyday. But, she also said that the patients have the right to determine their own course of treatment. And she also made a good point saying that it can be better to end their lives rather than to watch their body conditions deteriorate. Analysis I found two obvious main ideas for my topic, euthanasia: it is ethical and it is not ethical. But adding on to it, I found three smaller ideas that came along with it that include the factors of doctors jobs, familys situation/feelings, and the human rights of the patient(s). The ideas I got were mostly similar, but it was still different. One says that euthanasia is ethical because it is the patients human right to choose when to end their lives. On the other hand, other writers showed their belief of saying that euthanasia is not ethical because of many reasons. They believe that its the doctors job to do anything to keep the patient(s) alive. Another big idea is that it is unethical because youll never know if the coma patient is recovering or not. So if euthanasia is performed, the patient mightve been killed even though they were getting better. The last idea is that it can deteriorate the patients family situation. The family can feel guilty, or regret killing their family member. These ideas showed similar thoughts and opinions. Conclusion The idea of euthanasia is currently known to be unethical due to many cases where euthanasia was performed on coma patients, but the patients were actually murdered while they were recovering. However, there are many other thoughts about it that believe euthanasia is completely ethical, and that it is just another solution to unbearable pain. But even though most people think it is ethical, there is still a lot of debate about this topic, especially for coma

Song 8 patients. People who are in a coma are hard to tell if theyre conscious or not. That is why out of all euthanasia topics, this one has been a very controversial topic for a while.

Song 9 Bibliography B., Phil. Is Euthanasia Ethical? Phil For Humanity. Phil For Humanity, n.d. Web. 08 May 2012. http://www.philforhumanity.com/Is_Euthanasia_Ethical.html Definition of Euthanasia. MedicineNet.com. MedicineNet, Inc., 27 Apr. 2011. Web. 16 May 2012. http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=7365 Ertelt, Steven. Comatose Patient Glad Parents Didnt Listen to Doctors Euthanasia Suggestion. LifeNews. LifeNews.com, 4 Aug. 2008. Web. 08 May 2012. http://www.lifenews.com/2008/08/04/bio-2532/ Frequently Asked Questions. Coma Care: Hearing The Silent Voices. Coma Care, 30 Mar. 2012. Web. 16 May 2012. http://www.comacare.com/cgibin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&cause_id=1784&news_id=84752&cat_id=all King, Patricia. Address Inequalities First. The New York Times. The New York Times Co., 10 Apr. 2012. Web. 08 May 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/10/why-do-americans-balk-ateuthanasia-laws/address-inequalities-before-legalizing-assisted-suicide Kingsbury, Kathleen. A New Fight to Legalize Euthanasia. Times:Health. Time Inc., 16 May 2008. Web. 08 May 2012. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1807401,00.html Nordqvist, Christian. What Is Euthanasia (assisted Suicide)? What Is The Definition Of Assisted Suicide Or Euthanasia? MNT: Medical News Today. MediLexicon International Ltd, 19 Mar. 2011. Web. 16 May 2012. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/182951.php

Song 10 Smith, Dana. When is euthanasia an ethical option? Brain Study. WordPress.com, 13 June 2011. Web. 08 May 2012. http://brainstudy.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/euthanasiaethical-option/ Types of Euthanasia. Pregnant Pause. Pregnant Pause, 20 Nov. 2011. Web. 16 May 2012. http://www.pregnantpause.org/euth/types.htm Vinci, Alessio. Comatose woman in euthanasia debate dies. CNN:Health. Cable News Network, 9 Feb. 2009. Web. 08 May 2012. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-0209/health/italy.euthanasia_1_comatose-woman-emergency-decreetube?_s=PM:HEALTH

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