Euthanasia and assisted suicide

Euthanasia and assisted suicide

Euthanasia refers to the practice of ending a life deliberately to alleviate suffering and pain. Assisted suicide, on the other hand, refers to the practice of helping another human being to commit suicide. In most nations, euthanasia and assisted suicide are against the law. In this paper, I will extensively discuss euthanasia and assisted living and explain broadly how my opinion on the two issues has changed after taking this course. I will also explain how the two issues are similar and in what ways they differ.

For one to have an opinion on something, they must first fully understand it. Euthanasia also mercy killing; it is the act of ending the life of a person(s) suffering from incurable and painful disease or an incapacitating physical disorder; this may be through stopping life support measures or withholding treatment. During the late 20^th century, a few European nations added special provisions in their laws to allow for leniency in sentencing euthanasia cases involving extenuating circumstances. The idea of euthanasia is traceable back to the Stoics, Plato, and Socrates. A movement fighting for the legalization of euthanasia first started in England in 1935, which was later known as the euthanasia society. The society was founded later on in the US in 1938 (Dowbiggin, 2007). The traditional Christian belief is strictly opposed to any killing and, as such, rejects the idea of mercy killing.

Euthanasia is categorizable into passive and active forms. Active euthanasia is whereby one person deliberately and directly ends a patient’s life, passive euthanasia, on the other hand, is indirect but also deliberate. These two forms cannot be morally distinguished to satisfaction since, in both cases, the result is the death of the patient, and the actions are deliberate. Active euthanasia occurs as a result of an act, for example, a pain-killers’ overdose or a lethal drugs’ combination, whereas passive euthanasia occurs as a result of omission (Johnson & Rucker, 2016). The omission may be via either withholding or withdrawing of treatment. Traditionally, people thought that passive euthanasia was the lesser evil, but others feel that active euthanasia is better in the moral perspective. In most countries, the legislation on these two forms of euthanasia is different; for example, in Canada, passive euthanasia was legal for a very time before the legalization of active euthanasia in 2016.

Euthanasia can also be voluntary, non-voluntary, involuntary, or indirect. Voluntary euthanasia is where the patient himself /herself requests their death. Non- voluntary euthanasia occurs under circumstances where the patient is not in a condition to decide by themself, for example, a coma patient, an infant or underage child, senile, severely mentally retarded, etc. In such a situation, another appropriate person decides on behalf of the patient.  Involuntary euthanasia is where the person who dies as a result of the process is opposed to the decision but is killed anyway (Drew et al., 2018). Indirect euthanasia, on the other hand, occurs where offering the patient treatment speeds up their death. In my opinion, indirect euthanasia as morally acceptable since the primary intention is to provide treatment and not to kill.

Assisted suicide refers to a situation where a person who is going to die either way requests someone to kill them. It’s referred to as Medical-assisted dying where a physician prescribes a lethal dose to a patient to self-administer. It may also involve the provision of a weapon, illegal drugs, or prescription medication while aware of the recipient’s prior plan to commit suicide. One may argue that everyone deserves the moral right of freely choosing what to do with their lives, provided they don’t harm others in the process. In the US, assisted suicide is now legal in various states such as California, Vermont, Washington, and Oregon (Emanuel et al., 2016).

In my opinion, the difference between assisted suicide and euthanasia is evident in the behavior and level of involvement. In assisted suicide, the physician avails a lethal means to the patient, which they can use at a time of their choosing. In contrast, for active euthanasia, the physician directly injects the patient with the lethal substance, i.e., the physician plays an active role in killing the patient.  Assisted suicide is emotionally easier for the physician than euthanasia since they are not actively involved in putting the patient to death. Assisted suicide supporters tend to argue that it has the added benefit of permitting one to choose their time of death and a chance to back out of their decision up to the last minute. I think that the same possibility exists for voluntary active euthanasia, and even better, it allows the physician to discuss with the patient their options and motives the last time. While utilization of self-administered lethal drugs ascertains freedom of timing, it has a high risk of error since the freedom of timing is limited to a time when the patient can hold down substances, swallow and absorb the drugs. Euthanasia, on the other hand, has a smaller risk of error and is possible where self-administration is no longer possible. The fundamental commonality between assisted suicide and euthanasia is that the result is death, and they both put an end to suffering and pain.

Before taking the course, I was utterly opposed to both euthanasia and assisted suicide. Coming from a strict Christian family, from a young age, I was taught the Christian doctrine dictating that no one should take their life or that of others under any circumstance. The course has exposed me to very many conditions that may warrant and necessitate assisted suicide or euthanasia. However, I am still wholly opposed to involuntary euthanasia. In my opinion, no situation warrants someone killing another person without their consent no matter the pain they are enduring unless them remaining alive exposes others to unavoidable permanent risks.

References

Dowbiggin, I. (2007). A concise history of euthanasia: life, death, God, and medicine. Rowman & Littlefield.

Drew, J., & Grant, B. (2018). Natural Law, Non-Voluntary Euthanasia, and Public Policy. In Applied Ethics in the Fractured State (pp. 67-82). Emerald Publishing Limited.

Emanuel, E. J., Onwuteaka-Philipsen, B. D., Urwin, J. W., & Cohen, J. (2016). Attitudes and practices of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Jama, 316(1), 79-90.

Johnson, R. R. (2016). Moral Permissibility of Active Euthanasia (Master’s thesis).