Preview

Euthanasia Is Morally Wrong

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
466 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Euthanasia Is Morally Wrong
Every human life is precious. Regardless of age, gender or race, each individual is entitled to his or her self-preservation. While we have the innate duty to maintain our personal welfare, it is morally sound to say that we also have a responsibility to avoid inflicting harm towards other people, whether we personally know them or we are total strangers to them and vice versa.

In the medical field, doctors are presumed to cure their patients and provide them with utmost care for their health. Family members or relatives of patients are likewise expected to see to it that their loved-ones in hospitals are given the proper medical attention. All of these things point to the undeniable fact that we bring our ailing friends or family members to hospitals so that they will be cured and be brought back to their normal lives.

In extreme life-or-death cases, our impulse to keep our loved ones alive is stronger more than ever. Patients with terminal cases or those who have very little chance of survival are expected to receive the best medical treatment in order to address the risks involved. These patients, too, are human beings just like any one of us, except that they are suffering from tormenting ailments. They can feel pain. They have lives.

Euthanasia, or mercy-killing, is killing. Any way you look at it, euthanasia involves taking away the life of a person. When a patient is induced with euthanasia, the primary intent is to kill the patient. Some say that the reason why some patients are induced with euthanasia is to relieve them of their pain. Apparently, it is a fact that dead people can feel no pain because, of course, they are already dead. But that should not mean that just because a patient has a terminal disease we should resort to euthanasia in order to end his or her suffering.

Think about this. If you really intend to preserve the life of a person, not the least someone who is close to you, you find ways to extend his or her life no matter how

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    A Person's Right to Die

    • 953 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the majority of cases, people die in hospitals where physicians and nurses make heroic efforts to keep patients alive until there is no reasonable chance for their recovery. Unfortunately, in the course of those valiant efforts, pain, suffering, and the wishes of patients and their families are often overlooked as physicians and staff struggle with medical, moral, legal, and economic matters. In most cases, medical professionals have significant discretion in deciding when additional efforts to sustain life are futile, and a patient should be allowed to die.…

    • 953 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    For instance, euthanasia may be seen as assisted suicide or having the right to choose when a patients’ quality of life is too diminished. Choosing when to withhold life saving treatment is also a very personal choice and opinions about the appropriate time can be extremely diverse from patient to family to friends to healthcare providers. Patients choosing to continue detrimental behaviors and actions, that may have resulted in the terminal illness, can also prove to be frustrating to nurses and family providing support and care.…

    • 1801 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    If further therapies to prolong life "do not offer a reasonable hope of benefit or entail an excessive burden", they may be refused by the family. (Rev. O ' Rourke, 2005). The intention intrinsic in an act of this nature does not constitute suicide or euthanasia. Rather, it is an act whose moral object may be accurately described as "allowing to die for legitimate reasons." When a person chooses to have life support withheld or removed, or when a proxy makes the decision, the decision maker is not making a choice in favor of death. Rather, an indirect choice is made about when the patient will die, "taking into account the state of the sick person and his or her physical and moral resources." (Somerville, 2010).…

    • 1284 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Euthanasia advocates Patients are constantly receiving criticism from those who believe that euthanasia is not ethical and should be illegal everywhere. Euthanasia can be defined as the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease. The practice of euthanasia is illegal in most countries. Euthanasia can be either voluntary, non-voluntary, or involuntary. Voluntary euthanasia occurs when the patient requests to die. Non-voluntary euthanasia occurs when a patient is either unconscious or unable to make a choice regarding their death and an appropriate person makes this decision for them. Involuntary euthanasia occurs when the patient wishes to live but is killed anyway and is considered murder. There are different…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Euthanasia is currently legal in the United States, but still considered cruel to some people. Animals that are in agony and need mercy are euthanized. Some think that it's cruel to put animals out of there misery, but some think it's cruel not to. Euthanasia, mercy killing used on animals, is fair to animals in suffer. If a dog got hit by a car and was in great pain, you could either wait until it dies on its own, or euthanize the dog, putting it out of its misery.…

    • 207 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Living is more valuable than dying and threatening to diminish the value of life is dangerous. Euthanasia, also called mercy killing, is the practice of doctors intentionally ending a terminally ill patient’s life in what is purportedly a gentle and dignified manner. The term originated in ancient Greek and means “easy death.” Doctors perform euthanasia by administering lethal drugs or by withholding treatment that would prolong the patient’s life. Physician-assisted suicide is also a form of euthanasia, but the difference between the two methods is that in euthanasia, doctors end the patient’s life with lethal injections, whereas, in physician-assisted suicide, patients kill themselves with a lethal amount of drugs prescribed by the doctors.…

    • 1537 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    End of Life

    • 2155 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Dying is the final portion of the life cycle for all of us here on earth. Providing excellent, humane care to patients near the end of life, when healing means are either no longer possible or, no longer desired by the patient, is an essential part of medicine. For physicians and health care providers to provide excellent care to dying patients and their families, they need expertise as well as compassion. Making excellent care for dying patients regularly available will require improvements in the professional education. There should be added teachings on the life of and the care of a terminal person. The care of the dying patient, like all medical care, should be guided by the values and preferences of the individual patient. Independence and dignity are central issues for many dying patients. Maintaining control and not being a burden can also be relevant concerns. I believe the patient “maintaining control” is the first concern of someone who has been given a terminal diagnosis. Sometimes the hardest part about dying is the effect it has on family and friends. Helping them deal with the pending death also helps the patient find peace and comfort. By maintaining control of medical…

    • 2155 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Matters of Life and Death

    • 631 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In a new book, A Miracle and a Privilege, Dr Francis Moore, 81, of Harvard Medical School, discusses a lifetime of grappling with the issue of when to help a patient die. An excerpt:…

    • 631 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The study of Bioethics involves the consideration of ethical issues arising from advancements in medicine and/or biology. The study of bioethics helps with determining the proper decision in regard to medical or biological issues. Bioethics is highly influential in academia, where scholars investigate the various scenarios arising from advancements, but is also influential in the applied realms of biology and medicine. Albert Jonsen, in his book Bioethics, claims "This field has established itself as an integral part of practical or applied philosophy and as a valuable adjunct to health policy and medical practice" (Jonsen 4). When dealing with the human body, ethics must be considered in order to preserve the value of human life. A highly…

    • 1545 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    To many, death may seem like a daunting topic, but it is a topic, which affects everyone and should be discussed. Every person deserves to have some autonomy when it comes to end-of-life care decisions. There are ethical and legal disputes that arise because of disagreements between patients, families, and medical professionals. Unfortunately, there is not always a clear right answer to what extent or how something should be done. How to care for a dying individual also presents a plethora of issues, especially for nurses. This is mostly due to lack of support in the work place and community settings for that patient and their family. Analyzing these issues can only aid in more open discussions and the progressive evolution of better care for terminal patients. Ultimately, better care and education can assist these patients in dying with the dignity they rightfully deserve.…

    • 1104 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Caring for terminal patients near the end of life is a practical matter than extends far beyond the skills learned in clinical practice and being a competent nurse. It is based on a level of interaction with another human being that transcends the self and attempts to heal on a non-physical plane. The type of caring involved in developing an effective relationship, as a nurse, with a person facing death is most clearly defined by Jean Watson.…

    • 1771 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    “Any action or social policy is morally right if it serves to increase the amount of happiness in the word or to decrease the amount of misery. Conversely, an action or social policy is morally wrong if it serves to decrease happiness or to increase misery.” (RSL/Rachels, EL 247) The utilitarian argument is used to justify and condemn many policies, however, I believe that the argument is especially fitting when it comes to the matter of active euthanasia. Mercy, an action that serves to decrease the overall misery in the world, is an unquestionable sign of kindness and correctness. Mercy comes in many forms and is rarely frowned upon. Following this reasoning, why is mercy that takes the form of ending a suffering patient’s life considered…

    • 1542 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    There is the possibility of assisted living, hospice, and of course hospitalization. Craig Paterson says in his book, “As agents, we are concerned to assess the structural make-up of morally significant actions and are not content to rest with the description of an action that is only focused on its further objective or consequences” (75). Paterson is telling us that as moral agents, we need to understand the action, not only the consequence. This is the fundamental reason why assisted suicide should not be condoned. Therefore, any action to terminate another life is morally unacceptable, even if society has sanctioned such…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Life is considered to be free and chosen to do whatever it is the person favors, which includes the freedom to cease their life when it is filled with immeasurable pain and suffering. Terminally ill patients should be given the choice to die “peacefully, gently, quickly, and with certainty.” Studies show that 59% of terminally ill patients would rather be treated with hospice care than the aggressive treatment they receive to prolong their life and/or extending their death. This needs reassurance that someone will be there for them to assist medically.…

    • 851 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    And lastly, you it gives the ill person peace and final resting with no worries, no disease, no mental illness, no suffer. Yet there are those people who wish so much they could have their loved ones back, but wouldn't you also want the best for them if you were in a situation like how would you feel? Would you feel lost because you wouldn't know what to do? Or powerless because there’s nothing you can do to help that person? Someone’s life is in your hand. What would you…

    • 1258 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays