Euthanasia

“I will not prescribe a deadly drug to please someone, nor give advice that may cause his death." That is a part of the Hippocrates oath that we medical people take during graduation. Hey Salonii you are provoking me too much for the past two days! Pulling your leg. No offences. The applied ethical issue of euthanasia, or mercy killing, concerns whether it is morally permissible for a third party, such as a physician, to end the life of a terminally ill patient who is in intense pain.

“Whose life is it, anyway?” was the plea by the late Sue Rodrigues, a high-profile, terminally-ill resident of British Columbia, Canada, who suffered from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). She was helped to commit suicide by a physician in violation of Canadian law.

My answer is: it is HIS life. The Creator’s. He decides to give or take. Who are we mere mortals to decide? I do not support euthanasia in any of its forms. What does it mean and what are its types?

Throughout North America, committing suicide or attempting to commit suicide is no longer a criminal offense. However, helping another person commit suicide is a criminal act. One exception is the state of Oregon which allows people who are terminally ill and in intractable pain to get a lethal prescription from their physician. This is called "Physician Assisted Suicide" or PAS.

The word Euthanasia originated from the Greek language: eu means "good" and thanatos means "death". One meaning given to the word is "the intentional termination of life by another at the explicit request of the person who dies." That is, the term euthanasia normally implies that the act must be initiated by the person who wishes to commit suicide. However, some people define euthanasia to include both voluntary and involuntary termination of life. Like so many moral/ethical/religious terms, "euthanasia" has many meanings. The result is mass confusion.

It is important to differentiate among a number of vaguely related terms.

Passive Euthanasia: Hastening the death of a person by altering some form of support and letting nature take its course.

For example:
Removing life support equipment (e.g. turning off a respirator) or
Stopping medical procedures, medications etc., or
Stopping food and water and allowing the person to dehydrate or starve to death.
Not delivering CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) and allowing a person, whose heart has stopped, to die.

Perhaps the most common form of passive euthanasia is to give a patient large doses of morphine to control pain, in spite of the likelihood that the pain-killer will suppress respiration and cause death earlier than it would otherwise have happened. Such doses of pain killers have a dual effect of relieving pain and hastening death. Administering such medication is regarded as ethical in most political jurisdictions and by most medical societies.

These procedures are performed on terminally ill, suffering persons so that natural death will occur sooner. It is also done on persons in a Persistent Vegetative State - individuals with massive brain damage who are in a coma from which they cannot possibly regain consciousness.

Active Euthanasia: This involves causing the death of a person through a direct action, in response to a request from that person. A well known example was the mercy killing in 1998 of a patient with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) by Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a Michigan physician. His patient was frightened that the advancing disease would cause him to die a horrible death in the near future; he wanted a quick, painless exit from life. Dr. Kevorkian injected controlled substances into the patient, thus causing his death. Charged with 1st degree murder, the jury found him guilty of 2nd degree murder in 1999-MAR.

Physician Assisted Suicide: A physician supplies information and/or the means of committing suicide (e.g. a prescription for lethal dose of sleeping pills, or a supply of carbon monoxide gas) to a person, so that they can easily terminate their own life. The term "voluntary passive euthanasia" (VPE) is becoming commonly used. One writer suggests the use of the verb "to kevork". This is derived from the name of Dr. Kevorkian, who has promoted VPE and assisted at the deaths of hundreds of patients. Originally he hooked his patients up to a machine that delivered measured doses of medications, but only after the patient pushed a button to initiate the sequence. More recently, he provided carbon monoxide and a face mask so that his patient could initiate the flow of gas.

Involuntary Euthanasia: This term is used by some to describe the killing of a person who has not explicitly requested aid in dying. This is most often done to patients who are in a Persistent Vegetative State and will probably never recover consciousness.