Euthanasia Essay Research Paper EuthanasiaEveryone Has the

Euthanasia Essay, Research Paper

Euthanasia-Everyone Has the Right to Choose to Live or Die

Katie, a thirty-five year old woman was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. For the past two years Katie has been receiving chemotherapy and taking numerous types of medication to try to prolong her life. All of the treatments and visits to the doctors have made her even more tired and now Katie has to battle just to get out of bed. Every day her condition is becoming worse and worse. The doctors tell Katie she has six to eight months to live, and she has to receive six hours of therapy every day. She decides she doesn’t want to go through anymore pain or suffering and knows it is only a matter of time before she dies. She wants to end her suffering by taking her own life. Katie can not do it by herself and needs someone to assist her. How can someone assist a terminally ill person in taking a life and not risk going to jail for it.

In recent years, euthanasia has become a fiery debate. Euthanasia is a Greek word that means “easy death,” but the controversy it has created is just the opposite. Opponents of euthanasia say it is a fancy word for murder. Whether the issue is unnaturally taking another human.s life, assisting suicide, or active euthanasia, society is afraid of and not accepting of death. Especially with the prejudices of ageism, the dread of aging and dying. However, the issues that surround euthanasia are not only about death, they are about one.s liberty, right to privacy and control over his or her own body. So, the question remains, who has the right.

Under current U.S. law, there are clear distinctions between the two types of euthanasia. They are physician assisted death and euthanasia, which are different from one another. Physician assisted death involves a second party, usually a doctor, who gives the patient drugs and instructs him or her on how to take his or her own life. With euthanasia, it is a doctor who administers the lethal drug dose to the patient with his own hands. Since it is identical to homicide, euthanasia is illegal or a crime in most states. Although, the question is, how do prosecutors define the difference between ending a person’s life with his or her permission, and helping a person commit suicide. If a doctor, at a patient’s request, gives the person a lethal injection, he or she may be charged with murder. However, if a doctor simply places the lethal injection by the patient’s side, and the patient injects himself or herself, the doctor would be charged with assisted suicide. Although, it is not a crime to be present when a person takes his or her life, “it is a crime to be involved with the action intended to help facilitate death, no matter how justifiable and compassionate the circumstances may be” (DeSimone 45). There are many questions to what is legal in euthanasia and assisted suicide due to differences in circumstances. Although euthanasia is considered a crime in most states, the punishments can be as harsh as imprisonment. It depends on the state, but in some places non-medical euthanasia that is performed at home is not seen as a crime as long as the deceased was dying from a terminal illness, is an adult, and clearly made the request.

Interest in euthanasia in the United States began in 1870, when a commentator, Samuel Williams, proposed to the Birmingham Speculative Club that euthanasia be permitted “in all cases of hopeless and painful illness” to bring about “a quick and painless death” (Jens and Kung). The word painless is important. The idea of euthanasia didn.t begin to gain popularity because of new technologies for prolonging life, but because of the discovery of new drugs, such as morphine for the relief of pain, that could also painlessly induce death. The debate culminated in 1906, after the Ohio legislature took up An Act Concerning Administration of Drugs to Mortally Injured and Diseased Persons, which was a bill to legalize euthanasia. After being debated for months, the Ohio Legislature overwhelmingly rejected the bill. Euthanasia reemerged in 1976 and California was the first state to legalize a patient’s right to refuse life-prolonging treatment. The Legislature passed the Natural Death Act, which allows for living wills, and a request to a doctor to withhold or withdraw life sustaining treatment. The living will basically includes their request to die, and then also what their wishes are as far as what they want done with their assets. In 1990, the Supreme Court case, Cruzan v. Missouri, recognized the principle that a person has constitutionally protected right to refuse unwanted medical treatment. On March 6, 1996, for the first time in U.S. history, in the case Washington v. Glucksberg, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th circuit court in San Francisco overturned a Washington State law that made assisted suicide a felony. The court noted that, under present law, a dying patient on life support may legally have it removed to facilitate death while another dying patient, not on life support but suffering under equivalent circumstances and equally close to death, has no means to end his or her life. “Throughout the nation, Americans are engaged in an earnest and profound debate about the morality, legality and practicality of physician-assisted suicide” (Rohr 28).

However, the Court left open the possibility that such bans might be invalid when applied to individual