Active euthanasia
Should active euthanasia be legal?
Imagine lying in bed every day, not being able to stand up, walk or even eat without the help of nurses, because of a terrible incurable illness, that destroys your body slowly. Imagine being dependent on other people for the rest of your life, getting weaker every day and knowing that it can’t get better, but only worse. This is the fortune of many old, but sometimes also young people, who were diagnosed with an incurable illness, like cancer and many of them are only waiting for salvation and would prefer to die quickly, dignified and in peace. However active euthanasia is not an option in Austria. Unlike Switzerland, Belgium and or the Netherlands, fatally ill patients don’t have the independence to end their lives, when they want to.
One of the main arguments against active euthanasia is the Hippocratic Oath, which amounts, that a doctor mustn’t harm an ill person. But does it mean that the patient has to be kept alive, whatever it takes, even if he is suffering a lot and there is no hope for recovery anymore? No, it doesn’t. Above all, doctors have to help their patients and act in their interest of health. If medication is not working and there is no hope for improvement left any more, a patient should be able to determine his own death.
We are more human to our beloved animals, than to our fellow men. If a dog is very sick or he is suffering too much, it is immediately taken to the veterinarian, where it can die in peace, without suffering too long. Why don’t human beings have this privilege?
In the Netherlands, active euthanasia has been legal for a long time and Doctor Roel Smeijsters confirms that the knowledge, that his incurable patients are able to decide their time of death, makes them calmer and reassured. Very often active euthanasia isn’t even necessary anymore, just because the patients know they could end their lives, if they wanted to.
“The dignity of men is unimpeachable” – that’s what it
Imagine lying in bed every day, not being able to stand up, walk or even eat without the help of nurses, because of a terrible incurable illness, that destroys your body slowly. Imagine being dependent on other people for the rest of your life, getting weaker every day and knowing that it can’t get better, but only worse. This is the fortune of many old, but sometimes also young people, who were diagnosed with an incurable illness, like cancer and many of them are only waiting for salvation and would prefer to die quickly, dignified and in peace. However active euthanasia is not an option in Austria. Unlike Switzerland, Belgium and or the Netherlands, fatally ill patients don’t have the independence to end their lives, when they want to.
One of the main arguments against active euthanasia is the Hippocratic Oath, which amounts, that a doctor mustn’t harm an ill person. But does it mean that the patient has to be kept alive, whatever it takes, even if he is suffering a lot and there is no hope for recovery anymore? No, it doesn’t. Above all, doctors have to help their patients and act in their interest of health. If medication is not working and there is no hope for improvement left any more, a patient should be able to determine his own death.
We are more human to our beloved animals, than to our fellow men. If a dog is very sick or he is suffering too much, it is immediately taken to the veterinarian, where it can die in peace, without suffering too long. Why don’t human beings have this privilege?
In the Netherlands, active euthanasia has been legal for a long time and Doctor Roel Smeijsters confirms that the knowledge, that his incurable patients are able to decide their time of death, makes them calmer and reassured. Very often active euthanasia isn’t even necessary anymore, just because the patients know they could end their lives, if they wanted to.
“The dignity of men is unimpeachable” – that’s what it