argumentative essay against mercy killing

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Mercy killing debate: should euthanasia be legalized?

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Many new cases of physician-assisted suicide or mercy killing are emerging in Western countries. Some of them have regulated it. Do you think euthanasia  should be legalized? Under what circumstances? Do we have the right to die as we choose?

Mercy Killing Debate

Euthanasia or physician- assisted suicide , also know as mercy killing , is becoming a prominent public debate . The implications of legalizing assisted suicide are wide-ranging from a  medical , legal, political and ethical point of view. 

The term euthanasia means "good death" in Greek. With the progress of medicine in multiple domains (e.g. anesthesiology, pain medicine) came the problem of the decision of death. Some countries, like for instance Belgium, The Netherlands, and some states in the USA, including New Mexico, Montana, Oregon and Vermont, have passed laws allowing voluntary euthanasia. But the legality of choosing the moment of death is an extremely controversial subject because it appeals to personal views on ethics and morality and is highly emotional and linked to religious beliefs. Most countries still consider euthanasia a crime . Some people consider allowing euthanasia to risk opening a slippery slope where killing may become more common, and risk the killing of people misinformed or against their will. These people also worry about the risk of killing any person with some sort of suffering (e.g. mental disability, physical handicap). Supporters of euthanasia claim it is an individual right to decide when to die, to keep control of their fate when it is still possible.

Types of euthanasia

There are different types of euthanasia according to whether the will of the patient has been expressed.

• Voluntary euthanasia : to intentionally end the life of someone who asked for it to relieve physical pain and psychological suffering. It can be considered as assisted suicide. Patient gives informed consent. An official signed document in which one declares one wants to be euthanized.
• Non-voluntary euthanasia : consent of the patient is unavailable. Usually family members are asked about the possible will of the patient as well as their own wish.
• Involuntary euthanasia is against the patient’s will and is illegal, considered as murder, in most countries. 

Euthanasia can also be divided into:

• Passive euthanasia:  when the family or medical staff withhold life support (e.g. medication, respiratory machine, feeding or liquids) from the patient.
• Active euthanasia: when the patient is administered (e.g. injected) a lethal dose of any chemical substance to end her/life. 

And you? Do you support  mercy killing ?   Should euthanasia be legalized? Before voting and commenting you may want to consider the pros and cons of legalizing physician-assisted suicide (see below).

Watch this video on the mercy killing debate

Euthanasia pros and cons

• Dying with dignity: some people are deeply sick, postrated and unable to do even the most basic human actions, such as eating, changing clothes, washing themselves or using the toilets. They often find their state degrading and humilliating and may prefer to die with dignity and stop being a burden to those around them.
• End to human suffering: people with terminal illness and no chance of recovery often suffer great physical pain and emotional distress. Ending their lives, if they wish so, can spare them from an unnecessary suffering.
• Legal certainty: according to research conducted in the Netherlands, regulating euthanasia has improved legal certainty and has contributed to the carefulness of assisted suicide.
• Healthcare spending: keeping alive terminal patients who are suffering and not able to recover is also very expensive and detracts medical resources from other patients who could heal or need treatments. Families of the patients who want to end their lives may also face bills which can very negatively affect their finances.
• Autonomy and self-determination: opposing to someone's will of ending her/his life goes against that person freedom and right of deciding on their future.
• Moral and ethical problems: physician assisted death clashes with religious beliefs. Many religions state that human life end should not be decided by people but by God. 
• Misunderstandings and errors: there are cases in which doctors have wrongfully diagnosed a terminal disease or have thought that a patient is without hope of recovery. However, medicine evolves and cures may be found. Some new treatments may become effective were others failed. So terminating someone's life even with her/his consent may be a mistake.
• Legalizing murder: regulating euthanasia for some extreme cases may mean crossing a line. It has been argued that this could be a slippery slope which could end up with the legalization of an increasing number of cases for ending a life for utilitarian reasons.
• Abuse: if euthanasia is legal, there may be an incentive to exaggerate the negative condition of patients so that the family decides to "disconnect" them so that the hospital or insurance company saves money.
• Complexity: even if countries decide to legalize euthanasia, there may be great difficulties in agreeing with the cases and situations in which these mercy killings are acceptable and with the legal procedures that should be respected.

Taking all these pros and cons into consideration and the experience in the territories where it has been legalized, what would you recommend doing?

You may also want to participate in our debates on the legalization of  cannabis , prostitution , and  same sex marriage .

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2.3: Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing (Nathan Nobis)

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9 Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing Nathan Nobis 24

1. Introduction

Sadly, there are people in very bad medical conditions who want to die. They are in pain, they are suffering, and they no longer find their quality of life to be at an acceptable level anymore. Given all that, they want their lives to end: they want to be out of their misery. Some of these people are kept alive by machines or other medical treatments. If these machines were turned off or the medical interventions stopped, these people would die.

Can it be morally permissible , or not wrong , to turn off these machines or stop treatment and so let someone die, in circumstances like these? Many people think it can be. They believe that, morally, we do not have to do everything we can to keep someone alive, no matter their quality of life or what they want. Indeed, sometimes keeping someone alive, when they could be allowed to die, would be wrong: we really should just let them die.

Here I develop an argument for this view, that what’s usually called “passive euthanasia” can be morally permissible. More interestingly though, I explain how the reasons in favor of passive euthanasia suggest and support thinking that in some circumstances “active euthanasia” is justified, so it can be OK to actively kill some patients, for example, by giving them an overdose of drugs that will painlessly end their lives. So, I argue that if you think it can sometimes be OK and appropriate to let some patients die, then you should also think it can sometimes be OK and appropriate to actively kill some patients.

2. Definitions

Let’s begin with some definitions to better understand the issues.

First, our topic is euthanasia , which is sometimes called “mercy killing.” The word euthanasia relates to the idea of a “good death.” People typically seek euthanasia to avoid a very bad death full of agony, pain, and suffering and all that results from that: for example, people wracked with horrific pain might not be able to meaningfully experience their final days or weeks with loved ones, due to the constant agony: when you are in terrible pain, it’s hard to talk, and listen, and share.

The most common type of euthanasia involves someone euthanizing someone else. Another type involves someone performing euthanasia on themselves, or euthanizing themselves: this is a type of suicide.

Euthanasia is usually classified as three types: voluntary , non-voluntary and involuntary :

Here we will only discuss arguments about voluntary euthanasia, but readers can thoughtfully extend that discussion to the unique circumstances of non-voluntary euthanasia. Since involuntary euthanasia, passive or active, is generally wrong, it won’t be discussed further.

3. An Argument for Passive Euthanasia

‘No’ suggests that we must always do everything we can to keep someone alive, even if they are miserable, want to die, and say so. To many, that’s just cruel. If a dog or cat were in a similar condition, we would do the merciful and humane thing and put them out of their misery: this is perhaps the one way that animals are often treated better than humans.

The judgment that ‘yes, it can be OK to let someone die’ can be supported by both consequentialist (or utilitarian) and Kant-inspired moral reasoning. What Kant himself argued about these issues might be different from what’s argued here: Kant sometimes applied his own moral principles to practical issues in unconvincing ways.

For the consequentialist, the person being out of their misery is a better consequence for them, and overall, than their staying alive: killing them decreases the net unhappiness, pain, and badness in the world. For the Kantian, letting them die respects their autonomy (or personal self-governance): we should respect people’s decisions about profound issues in their own lives. Given their reasonable desires, respecting their wishes treats them as “end in themselves,” but forcing them to live in their unwanted condition treats them as a “mere means” toward our own ends, not their own.

‘Yes’ can also be supported by spelling out conditions in which it can be OK to let someone die. We begin with an ‘if’ and develop a moral principle:

If …

• someone is dying, and
• is in horrible pain and suffering, and
• that pain and suffering cannot be relieved, and
• that person wants to die and clearly says so, and
• informed, thoughtful and caring people agree that the person would be better off no longer living…,

then it can be permissible to let that person die.

To many people, a principle like this seems plausible. And it justifies passive euthanasia in many circumstances.

The details of a principle like this, however, take us to harder questions about euthanasia, harder than those that arise in most circumstances: for examples, what if someone wants to die now but isn’t currently in horrible pain and suffering, or is expecting to die, but many years later after a very slow decline? Should anyone else have “say” over your own life or judge whether some pain and suffering is “horrible enough” for you to reasonably wish to die? If so, who? What if someone isn’t dying and doesn’t even have a bad medical condition but just finds their life not worth living and so wants to die (and so, say, plans to starve themselves to death or do other things that will result in their death)? These harder questions, and others, would need to be addressed for a complete defense of this or similar principles and any arguments based on them.

In sum, a basic case for passive euthanasia can be supported by utilitarian, Kantian and common-sense moral thinking. Let’s consider two objections before moving on to the case for active euthanasia.

3.1. First, some claim that pain can always be controlled, and patients always kept comfortable, so there is never a need to let anyone die (or, of course, actively kill them).

In reply, medical professionals try their best to control pain and make patients comfortable and they often are effective. But the insistence that pain can always be made bearable for everyone is, unfortunately, not true: some patients’ pains cannot be controlled to their own satisfaction.

3.2. Second, some argue that “miracles” are always possible, so there’s always a chance that someone gets better and even survives, and so we shouldn’t let patients die.

These hopes are understandable, but there are conditions that nobody has ever recovered from, and so the chances are very slim. And we don’t usually make important decisions based on very unlikely chances: for example, you could be in an unlikely car accident where a seatbelt harms you, rather than helps you: nevertheless, wearing a seatbelt is the smart choice.

Also, no type of euthanasia, passive or active, would prevent a miracle, especially a genuine miracle involving divine intervention: turning off the machines could be the occasion for a miraculous recovery, and an overdose of painkillers could be miraculously transformed into life-saving medications. People hoping for a miracle shouldn’t forget what miracles really could be.

4. An Argument for Active Euthanasia

The basic argument for active euthanasia, that is, for intentionally killing people who, due to their medical conditions, wish to be killed and say so is fairly simple.

We begin by reflecting on the basic reasons why passive euthanasia can be OK: it gets people out their misery and respects what they want for their own lives. “Letting people die” is a means toward those ends or goals. However, these goals can be pursued more directly and immediately by actively killing patients who wish to die. Letting people die often takes a long time, and that time will often be filled with pain and suffering, which the patient wants to avoid. Killing people, when they want to be killed , achieves the goals that they want, that is, to be out of their misery, more quickly and with less pain. And that is what they want, so they get what they want, quicker.

So, the basic assumptions that less unwanted pain and suffering is typically better than more and people’s desires about profound matters affecting their own lives and deaths usually should be fulfilled sooner than later , and the fact that killing someone is often a more effective means towards those ends, justifies active euthanasia, at least in some circumstances.

5. Objections: Potentially Relevant Differences Between Active and Passive Euthanasia

There are many objections to this type of reasoning, all intended to explain why active euthanasia is wrong but passive euthanasia can be permissible. Let’s consider some of the most common.

5.1. First, some claim that it’s always wrong to intentionally kill someone, so passive euthanasia can be OK but active euthanasia is wrong.

In reply, while we should agree that it’s, at least, nearly always wrong to intentionally kill someone, we should observe that most people want to live and do not currently have lives full of pain, suffering, and misery. So, the rule against killing is good in general, but we can argue that there are justifiable exceptions to this rule and that euthanasia is one of them.

5.2. Second, some argue that allowing active euthanasia puts us on a “slippery slope” to murdering patients, and people in general, who are not in challenging medical circumstances or do not want to die. That’s wrong, so we shouldn’t allow euthanasia, which might lead to that.

In reply, we can rightly wonder why that would happen, since arguments for euthanasia are very specific on the conditions where it might be permissible. They are especially clear that if someone wants to live, they should not be euthanized.

5.3. Third, some argue there is always an important (moral) difference between “allowing” something to happen and “doing” something, and so passive euthanasia is OK but active is not.

We might wonder if there is a clear distinction here. Consider this example:

You see that someone is about to unknowingly walk and fall into a deep pit in the ground. You could easily warn them of the pit, but you keep quiet and they fall in and are seriously injured. You tell yourself that if you had pushed them into the pit, you’d be blameworthy, but since you have “done nothing” you are completely blameless.

Many would find this judgment unbelievable: you did do something: what you did was stay silent and not warn them of the pit. “Inaction” is itself an action: doing nothing is doing something . Furthermore, what you did (in “doing nothing”) was wrong. It would often be worse for you to push the person into the pit yourself (or maybe not?), but your letting them fall in was wrong: you partially caused their injury: had you acted differently, they wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

Examples like these suggest that there are not clear moral or conceptual differences between doing something and allowing something to happen . The objection above mistakenly assumes there are.

5.4. There’s an important (moral) difference between killing and letting die, and so passive euthanasia is OK but active is not.

This final objection is similar to the previous. James Rachels famously responds with an example like this:

An evil aunt will inherit lots of money if her five-year-old nephew dies. She plans to drown him in the bathtub and make it look like an accident. She will get away with it. He just started his bath and she’s on her way to the bathroom to drown him. She opens the bathroom door and is delighted to see that he has slipped in the bathtub and is drowning. She watches, ready to push him under if he steadies himself and is able to save his own life. But, as her luck would have it, he doesn’t and so he drowns. She never touches him throughout the ordeal and inherits the cash, never telling a soul what happened.

What an awful story. What an awful aunt. Her motives were awful and what she did was wrong. If she explained that she didn’t “do anything,” that she didn’t do anything wrong, that, at best, she merely “let someone die” – it’s not like she killed anyone! – she is profoundly mistaken: letting someone die can be just as bad (or nearly as bad) as killing someone. We might even say that a way to kill someone is to let them die.

The objection here depends on a clear moral distinction between killing and letting die. There is no such distinction.

5.5. Mistakes are possible, so we shouldn’t allow euthanasia.

A final objection is not to the ethics of euthanasia per se, but whether, as a social or legal policy, it should be allowed: it’s possible that we could think an action is, or can be, morally permissible, but that for various reasons, as society we shouldn’t allow it.

The concern is that where active euthanasia is allowed, some people who should not be killed could be killed. This is true: this is a possibility. It’s also true that where passive euthanasia is allowed, some people could be let die who should be kept alive. The argument is that since mistakes and wrongdoing regarding euthanasia are always possible, we should not allow it as a society. (This is consistent with thinking that euthanasia is sometimes morally permissible).

In reply, we cannot ignore the opposing truth that if euthanasia is not allowed, that would result in mistakes and wrongdoing also: people would be wrongly kept alive, and wrongly forced to endure more suffering than they can bear and their deepest desires for their own lives disrespected.

These possible mistakes, unlike the possible mistakes in allowing euthanasia, however, cannot be corrected or addressed by any safeguards or precautions, if euthanasia is not allowed. The wisest strategy then is to allow euthanasia, with limits and safeguards, and work to ensure that any mistakes and wrongdoing are minimized, and hopefully prevented completely.

6. Conclusions

There are, of course, more objections to these arguments, and other important arguments and concerns to discuss, and factual information to review, to have genuinely responsible views about these matters: this essay is just a start.

These issues of this essay are important and not just for people currently facing difficulties where euthanasia might be part of the response. These issues are important to all of us since we have no idea what will happen to us, and our loved ones, years down the road, tomorrow, or even later today: an accident or illness might befall us that forces us to ask and answer hard questions about whether our lives are still worth living. While we hope these questions aren’t forced on us, we should ask them now and work on answering them now, together and as individuals. Part of a good death is that it is an end of a good life, and an opportunity to begin a better life is always now.

James Rachels, “Active and Passive Euthanasia,” New England Journal of Medicine 1975; 292: 78-80.

For Further Reading

Young, Robert, “Voluntary Euthanasia”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/euthanasia-voluntary/ >.

Cholbi, Michael, “Suicide”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/suicide/ >.

Woollard, Fiona and Howard-Snyder, Frances, “Doing vs. Allowing Harm”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/doing-allowing/ >.

For Review and Discussion

1. What are the reasons someone might their life to end? Are those reasons strong enough to support their ending their life? Why or why not?

2. We regularly euthanize non-human animals, but euthanizing people is limited to certain countries (most notably The Netherlands). Is there a major difference between non-human animals and people that justifies our different use of euthanasia? Why or why not?

3. What is the strongest argument opposed to allowing active euthanasia? Is this argument stronger than the arguments in favor of active euthanasia? Why or why not?

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• Iran J Public Health
• v.43(10); 2014 Oct

Euthanasia: Murder or Not: A Comparative Approach

Background Euthanasia is one of the most intriguing ethical, medical and law issues that marked whole XX century and beginning of the XXI century, sharply dividing scientific and unscientific public to its supporters and opponents. It also appears as one of the points where all three major religions (Catholic, Orthodox, and Islamic) have the same view. They are strongly against legalizing mercy killing, emphasizing the holiness of life as a primary criterion by which the countries should start in their considerations. Studying criminal justice systems in the world, the authors concluded that the issue of deprivation of life from compassion is solved on three ways. On the first place, we have countries where euthanasia is murder like any other murder from the criminal codes. Second, the most numerous are states where euthanasia is murder committed under privilege circumstances. On the third place, in the Western Europe we have countries where euthanasia is a legal medical procedure, under requirements prescribed by the law. In this paper, authors have made a brief comparison of the solutions that exist in some Islamic countries, where euthanasia is a murder, with Western countries, where it represents completely decriminalized medical procedure.

Introduction

Euthanasia, i.e. mercy killing is both historical and contemporary problem of medicine, law, ethics and religion, which is reflected in the multitude of interwoven concepts and different legislative solutions of that question all over the world. The debate over legalizing euthanasia is like earthquake ( 1 – 4 ), sharply divides the scientific and unscientific public on its supporters and opponents, and although through literature pervades the opinion that this topic has been exhausted ( 5 ). In the maelstrom of issues that this topic opens, legislators all around the world try to find a practical solution, in order to resolve adequately the question of euthanasia. The line that separates admissible from impermissible merciful deprivation of life through the centuries has consistently been moved: in the direction of legalization of euthanasia and towards the complete ban of euthanasia. Globally, there are three main ways of regulation of mercy killing. One group of countries equates it with ordinary murder, while the second group represents the view that the euthanasia is privileged murder. Finally, in the third group euthanasia is decriminalized upon fulfillment of prescribed conditions. In Islamic countries, euthanasia is prohibited, both in the East ( 6 ) and in the Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is seen as non-Islamic ( 7 ) and it is equalized to the murder. Accordingly, in the countries where euthanasia is legally punishable, sentences vary from very lenient to the death penalty, as was the case in the Islamic countries ( 8 ).

Since the debate over the legalization of active euthanasia does not subside for many years, its supporters and opponents have created strong organizations that represent their beliefs about the (im) morality and (in) feasibility of the same. The focus of the problem lies in the question what extent is necessary to respect the life of terminally ill patients, and accordingly provide strong arguments. In other words, the question is whether in addition to the right on life, as a fundamental human right guaranteed by the European Convention of Human Rights and Liberties, there is a right to die, established through the right to self-determination. Thus, opponents of legalization of active euthanasia, as primary argument, emphasize the holiness of life at all costs (which is supported primarily with arguments in Islamic and Christian religion, which prohibit any form of suicide) ( 7 , 9 ), while its supporters believe that the moral obligation of doctors is to end the life of terminally ill patient who is suffering, but they also highlight the strong individual autonomy in the matters of life and death. In short, both supporters and opponents summarize most of their arguments on the concept of respect for the patient, where they allocate four forms: a concern for the welfare for the patient, respect his wishes, respect for fundamental values of life and respects for the interests of the patient ( 10 ). Therefore, inter alia, any discussion of euthanasia leads to objections based on religious grounds. Secular arguments are rejected, because they “do not consider the crucial importance of having God as the creator of entire universe and human beings” ( 11 ). This religious opposition to euthanasia is based on the claim that only someone who is not religious can consider euthanasia as one of the options in the life, but it cannot be for the people who have a religious orientation. In accordance with beliefs that prevail in some countries, their legislators resolve the issue of euthanasia in accordance with those beliefs, and some solutions will be discussed below. Among the reasons that explain the different treatment of euthanasia between countries, according to some authors, doctors often have a limited experience in this field, because they are not faced with such health condition of the patients ( 12 ). This statement is correct. For example, physicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina do not have any experience with euthanasia.

Euthanasia as murder

In the world were crystallized three approaches in the legislative regulations of this matter, and we will briefly point out the solutions in some jurisdictions. Due to the volume of work, we will explain the legislations in which euthanasia is equated with murder, as well as legislations that represent quite the opposite solution.

First, in all Islamic countries, in accordance with religious beliefs, direct euthanasia is prohibited and is equated with the murder. Iran is no exception. In Iranian law, euthanasia is not explicitly mentioned in the legal texts, but there are some exceptions that lead to a more lenient punishment in some murder cases. However, the euthanasia is a murder with intent, and comes from a religious doctrine of Muslims. One study conducted among 55 physician shows that 98% of them think that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is a violation of human dignity, and they would not be willing to provide those ( 13 ). Because of the above, there are still no attempts for broader interventions for legalizing mercy killing ( 14 ). A recent survey in Turkey showed that 78% of patients and 63% of physician take a view that at least one form of euthanasia should exist (in this, it is pointed out that there are not significant differences between gender, marital status, education level and age of the patients with attitude about euthanasia) ( 15 ).

Such line of regulation of this sensitive matter kept the legislator in the Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has four similar criminal regulations, because this country has four legislations (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of Serbs, and Brcko District). First, in BiH, which is considered as a frontier between the Christian and Muslim Europe, live three ethnic groups (Muslim 40%, 32% Serbs and Croats 8%) ( 16 ). These parts of the Bosnia do not have a same approach to the regulation of euthanasia, although at first glance it could be said that there is no difference in these criminal laws. It is a specific country, consisting of two entities (Federation Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Republic of Serbs), and the Brcko District. All three parts have their own legislation. For some considerations it is important to note that on this territory are valid three criminal codes: Criminal Code of Federation Bosnia and Herzegovina (further: CC FBH), Criminal Code of Brcko District (further: CC BD), and Criminal Code Republic of Serbs (further: CC RS).

In this part of the state applies a solution, which is defined as a crime deprivation of life another person’s life, punishable by prison sentence of at least five years. The legislator makes a difference between this, ordinary murder, and the first degree murder which includes causing a death of another person in a cruel or insidious way; by reckless and violent behavior; on racial, national or religious reasons; for gain, to commit or conceal another serious crime; from ruthless revenge or other base motives; and the murder of official or military personnel in the performance of duties of security or the duty to maintain public order, arrest the perpetrator of the crime or guarding a person deprived o liberty (article 166. CC FBH). Almost identical provision is contained in the CC BD, which in the addition has a hate murder (article 163. CC BD). In addition to these two forms of murder, these laws recognize a provoked murder, manslaughter, murder of a child at birth, incitement to suicide and assisted suicide, and unlawful termination of pregnancy. Therefore, all those deprivations of life, which does not fall within in these specially defined, fall under ordinary murder. In this way, they observe euthanasia. In the part of country where live people of Islamic faith mercy killing is equated with the ordinary murder, while the legislator in the RS considers euthanasia as murder committed under mitigating circumstances. According to it, who deprive another person of life shall be punished with imprisonment at least five years (maximum is twenty-five years of imprisonment), but if the crime is committed under mitigating circumstances, the offender shall be punished with imprisonment from one to eight years (article 148. CC RS). It follows that the criminal laws of the FBH and BD are inspired by the group of legislations that do not privilege a mercy murder, believing that compassion for poor condition of the murdered is not a separate basis for a more lenient punishment. On the other hand, the legislator in RS is in the group that has a benevolent view on this issue.

Mercy killing in the Republic of Serbs from other forms of murder differs by motive of the execution, which by its nature is altruistic, because its goal is mitigating the pain and suffering of the victim/patient ( 17 , 18 ). In the theory it is adopted an attitude that particularly mitigating circumstances occur circumstances in rare and specific situations. These circumstances legally and/or ethically fully justify particular murder or merely justify that the perpetrator could not otherwise act except to deprive a life of another human ( 19 ).

However, it should be noted that the sharp equalization of these two types of murders is not desirable, because there are different reasons that lead to negative consequences ( 20 ). View of euthanasia as a simple murder took the English legislator, where it resulted in the emergence of the death tourism , the phenomena where English inhabitants travel to Switzerland in the special hospitals and institutions to be euthanized ( 21 ). At the end of these considerations, we could mention that in the United States euthanasia is also prohibited and equalized with murder. However, four states (Oregon, Washington, Montana and Quebec) through court’s precedents decriminalized physician assisted suicide, as a procedure that is very similar to the euthanasia ( 22 ).

Euthanasia in Netherlands

The first associations about the Netherlands for many years have been related to the beautiful canals, parks, windmills, rich museums, and unique architecture. Today, this country is particularly known for two things: decriminalization of enjoyment and distribution of light drugs and legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide ( 21 ). The first known case of euthanasia in the Netherlands dates back to the early fifties of the last century, when the physician performed euthanasia against his own brother, who was in terminal stage of the disease and that caused a lot of pain, so he repeatedly asked his brother to take his life ( 23 ). However, this case had not attracted the attention of the public, unlike the case Postma in 1973, when the doctor was prosecuted because she injected a le thal dose of morphine to her mother, who had very poor health, but did not fatally diseased. In this highly emotional case, the court sentenced a doctor to one-year suspended sentence, but to whom execution is not occurred ( 23 , 24 ). This was followed by cases Amsterdam in 1977, Rotterdam in 1981 and Alkmaar in 1982.

The rapid increase of number of performed euthanasia has led to questioning of its legalization, mainly thanks to the activities of the Dutch Voluntary Euthanasia Society ( Nederlands Vereniging voor Vrijwillige Euthanasie (NVEEJ). The Dutch parliament in the winter of 1993 reached a compromise between the two opposing concepts in the issue of euthanasia ( 24 ). The parliament enacted the law that represents, generally speaking, a sort of codification of rules and procedures under which euthanasia is performed approximately three decades prior the enactment of the law. It is the most liberal law that regulates this matter in Europe. These standards and procedures are applied in medical practice and the practice of courts prosecuting crimes for deprivation of life from grace, and there is no extensive theoretical and legal doctrine on this issue, offering guidance in understanding the act of euthanasia ( 25 , 26 ). Therefore, the law is only the “tip of the iceberg” ( 27 ).

The Netherlands prescribed the liberal conditions necessary for the execution of euthanasia. First, it should be noted that the Law on the termination of life does not contain the term euthanasia , but uses the term termination of life on demand , without giving its definition, although the guidelines in the ‘80 of the XX century used the term euthanasia ( 28 ). According to the law, euthanasia is permitted upon meeting of the following requirements:

• The request originates from the patient, and is given free and voluntary;
• The patient suffers intolerable pain, which cannot be facilitated:
• Patient is aware of his medical condition and perspectives;
• Euthanasia is last sanctuary for patients, because there are no other alternative;
• The doctor, who has to perform an euthanasia, consulted a colleague who has experience in this field, and which has examined a patient and agreed that all conditions are met for euthanasia or assisted suicide, and
• Euthanasia or assisted suicide is performed with the necessary care ( 25 ).

Therefore, the physician who performs euthanasia will be protected from prosecution only if he meets all substantive and procedural requirements ( 29 ). That is why euthanasia is subject of control. In order to get the information whether they committed a crime, doctors sometimes have to wait a period of eight months from performed euthanasia ( 30 ). In fact, after the euthanasia doctor has an obligation to fill out the appropriate protocol and inform about euthanasia the municipal pathologist, by filling out the appropriate form and attaching all necessary documents ( 31 ).

Although at one point in this country a question of the existence of culture of death was raised, which was caused by number of early deaths of patients, the Royal Dutch Medical Association ( Koninklijke Nederlandsche tot beverdering der Geneeskunst (KNMG) ), recently, inter alia, reiterated that the law on termination of life must be an exception, not the rule, and that this procedure will never become a standard ( 32 ), although a number of doctors do not consider euthanasia as a exceptional measure, which would require the exercise of social control of it ( 33 ). However, the studies show that in the Netherlands euthanasia is more accepted way of completion of life. Compared to 1975, when 52, 6% of the population supported this form of deprivation of life; in 1988 this percentage was 88%. The fact that is especially interesting, if we consider that, the Catholic Church is strongly against euthanasia, is that the 74% of the Roman Catholic religion support euthanasia ( 29 ). Proponents of this form of deprivation of life find that the key determinant in this process should be self-determination, because respect of life includes the avoidance of undignified death ( 34 ). In addition, legal and medical theory state that patients are not afraid of euthanasia, but their biggest fear is that their request for euthanasia will be denied ( 35 ).

With regard to the statistics of euthanasia, we can note that there are significant differences in relation to the different years of observation. Thus, in 2001, in the Netherlands were 3,500 cases of euthanasia, while in the 2005 there were 2,297 of performed euthanasia, which represent 1, 7% of all deaths in the country ( 33 ). However, in the 2010 there were 2, 910 recorded cases of euthanasia, 182 cases of assisted suicide and 44 cases with elements of both kinds of these deprivation of life, representing 2, 3% of total deaths ( 36 ). In the following year, there were 3,695 notifications, which represent a significant increase in the number of deaths in this way, compared with the previous year ( 37 ). The main reason in all observed periods that led the patients on this step was existence of cancer. However, it is important to mention the fact that in each of the analyzed years there are several cases where the doctor did not comply with the rules of procedure. For example, in 2011 are recorded four such cases ( 37 ). In contrast to this fact, the prosecutions are rare. For instance, between 1981 and 1997 there were prosecuted only 20 doctors, of whom nine were convicted, but on the symbolic sentence (six to the suspended sentence and three on fines) ( 23 ). Then, based on the above, we should point out that in the Dutch professional public there are perceptions that the cases of euthanasia in fact do not exist. Reason for this opinion is that most of the cases are related with patients who are terminally ill (cancer), who have greatly suffered and received massive doses of medicaments ( 35 ).

Euthanasia in Belgium

The idea of legalizing euthanasia in Belgium emerged at the beginning of the 80s of the XX century, in the action of two associations for the right to die with dignity. However, unlike Netherlands, Belgium did not have a long history of performing euthanasia and prosecuting doctors, and it could not establish appropriate guidelines and led the legislator to the faster reaction. In the same time, that does not mean that there were doctors who practiced in the shadows and supported the idea of euthanasia ( 34 ). According to some studies, those were conducted in the late 90s of the last century, approximately 5% in Flanders of the total numbers of deaths accounted for euthanasia, i.e. on the use of drugs for the purpose of shortening of patient’s life. Special attention was aroused by a fact that the 3, 2% to 3, 8% of the deprivation of life was without explicit request of the patient ( 38 ).

Euthanasia law was enacted on 16 May 2002. In Belgium, before the enactment of the law, there were no guidelines or case law regarding to mercy killing. Therefore, Belgian law is much more detailed than Dutch law, which was more a result of some sort of codification of regulations ( 27 ). For these reasons, the Belgian legislator issued detailed provisions, in order to provide a greater level of protection and security to doctors and patients ( 39 ).

Characteristic of this law is that legislator in the title as well as in the text, uses a term euthanasia , which is defined as intentionally taking the life of another person upon his request. The definition, as a term, from one side, is taken from the Dutch law and theory; while on the other hand, the current Dutch law does use neither the term nor the definition. At this point, it is necessary to draw attention to the fact that the Belgian euthanasia law does not specifically regulate assisted suicide, and the reason for that can be found in the fact that it has never been a social need to regulate assisted suicide as a separate crime, and the difference between it and mercy killing is minimal. Therefore, regulation of assisted suicide in this law was superfluous — such as excessive mention that physicians has to take this procedure with due care and attention ( 40 ).

The requirements upon which the act of euthanasia will not constitute a criminal offence are set in almost the same way as in the Dutch legislation. Before conducting the deprivation of patient’s life, a physician has to inform the patient about his health and life expectations, to discuss with him about the request for euthanasia and about the options for palliative care, as well as the consequences of the decision. The patient and doctor have to work together and conclude that there is no reasonable alternative for the patient’s situation, and that his request was made voluntary. Then, the doctor must be convinced in the patient’s permanent physical and/or mental suffering, and to the fact that the request was made permanent. To be sure, the physician needs to do more interviews with the patient, but spread over a longer period, in order to follow better the development of state of his mind. The physician also has to consult another doctor about the condition of the patient, and to inform him of the request for euthanasia. Another doctor will review medical records and talk with the patient. He has to be sure in patient’s suffering that cannot be mitigated. His findings should be documented. He has to be completely independent from the patient and the acting physician as well, and must be competent to give an opinion on the disease in question, which will inform a patient. The next requirement is related with medical stuff, first, with nurses. Namely, if the concern about patient was engaged those who had a constant contact with the patient, the doctor needs to talk with them about the request for mercy killing ( 40 , 41 ).

The number of performed euthanasia in Belgium slightly increased after legalization, and raised the question of whether the deprivation of life of grace is normal medical practice or not. According to the Report from 2004, in 2003 259 merciful deprivation of life from mercy was conducted, which is average about 17 euthanasia per month, i.e., 0, 2% of total number of deaths in this country. The largest number of patients as a reason for that act noted various incurable kinds of cancer, and about 60% of them asked to perform euthanasia in hospital. In 2004 and 2005 there were performed 742 legal euthanasia (that was 0, 36% of total number of deaths) ( 42 ). Of these, 77% of the patients were aged between 40 and 79 years old, and from the total number of euthanasia deaths, 83% of patients suffered from cancer ( 43 ). However, the number of performed euthanasia has grown rapidly over the coming years, so in 2008 about 500 euthanasia was reported (which is slightly less than the previous year, when they reported 924 deaths), and in 2009 there were 1.526 euthanasia deaths, which is 0, 7% of total number of deaths. In approximately 80% of cases, the reason for requiring mercy killing was a cancer ( 40 ). According to the Report from 2012 (which refers to the period 2010-2011 year), the reason for euthanasia was cancer in 75% cases ( 44 ).

Euthanasia in Luxembourg

Luxembourg is the third country in Europe which legalized euthanasia, and which legislator brought euthanasia and assisted suicide law on 20 February 2008, and which entered into a force on 16 May 2009 year ( 45 ). Compared to the last two described laws, this law is similar, but not identical with them. The conditions for this procedure are set more or less on the same way. As far as the kinds of suffering that patient have to endure, Luxembourg’s legislator adopted the solution from the Belgian law, and allows mercy killing in the case of psychical pain. An important difference with the previously described legislations lies in the fact that physician has to seek prior approval from the National Council in order to perform a euthanasia ( 31 ).

Deprivation of life from compassion throughout the history of humanity appears as a question that engrosses the attention of lawyers, doctors, sociologists around the worlds. In certain stages of development of civilization it represented a permitted form of depriving another person’s life, while in the other stages was strictly prohibited. Today’s legislators basically occupying three positions, so, they prohibit euthanasia and equate it with ordinary or privilege murder, or allow it under the assumption of meeting of prescribed requirements. Bypassing the countries that privilege euthanasia as less serious murder, in this paper we have dealt with some legislations that this phenomenon strictly prohibit, and those that deprivation of life out of compassion treat as a permitted medical procedure. In Islamic countries, such as Iran, Turkey and part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, euthanasia is an ordinary murder, punishable by serious criminal sanctions. At the opposite pole are the Western European countries, more specifically, the Benelux countries (Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg), in which deprivation of life from the grace does not constitute a crime, if it was carried out in accordance with the clearly defined legal rules and medical procedure. In this way, we show how a life situation may be in different legal areas regulated in completely different way. Exactly this lack of harmony in the legislative solution in some European and American countries has led to the some adverse events, such as death tourism , as a phenomenon where inhabitants of one country, where euthanasia is prohibited, travel to another state where it is allowed, and where physicians can perform euthanasia. In order to avoid this, it is necessary to achieve a certain degree of harmonization of legislations, or to set appropriate limit in the legislations that legalized euthanasia. However, how it is possible to achieve, time will show.

Ethical considerations

Ethical issues (Including plagiarism, Informed Consent, misconduct, data fabrication and/or falsification, double publication and/or submission, redundancy, etc) have been completely observed by the authors.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Faculty of Law, University of Kragujevac. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

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Euthanasia – Mercy Killing or Assisted Suicide

Introduction.

Euthanasia, otherwise known as mercy killing or assisted suicide, has been a controversial subject for many centuries. Proponents of the practice believe that individual freedoms of choice that exist in life also extend to the end of life. They also argue that the sentiment of humane treatment afforded animals that are terminally ill or injured and are suffering should be given to humans as well. Opponents suggest that euthanasia is a ‘slippery slope’ that would allow increasing instances of coerced suicide, family members pressuring the elderly not to postpone their inevitable demise for financial reasons. In addition, the practice would lessen the urgency to develop new medicines designed to prolong life. Those who oppose the practice on religious grounds argue that it is ‘playing God’ therefore sinful. Health care professionals cite the Hippocratic Oath which forbids them from carrying out this procedure. This paper will examine the moral and ethical concerns surrounding euthanasia, clarify the meaning of the term, present arguments both for and against the practice and conclude with a recommendation to resolve the issue.

The word euthanasia is from Greek origin meaning ‘good death.’ Writers of 1700’s Britain referred to euthanasia as a being a preferential method by which to ‘die well.’ Euthanasia describes a situation in which a terminally ill patient is administered a lethal dose of medication, is removed from a life-support system or is simply allowed to die without active participation such as by resuscitation. A doctor’s involvement in the procedure could be to either prescribe a lethal dose of drugs with the express intent of ending a life or by intravenously inserting a needle into the terminal patient who then activates a switch that administers the fatal dose (Naji et al, 2005).

Physicians, lawmakers and philosophers have debated the notion of euthanasia since the beginning of recorded history but the wide public debate regarding its legalization has only surfaced over the past three decades. In the 1970’s it became lawful to draft ‘living wills’ which allows a patient to refuse ‘heroic’ life saving medical assistance in the event they were incapacitated and could only survive by artificial means (Rich, 2001). In other words, it gave the next of kin the right to direct doctors to ‘pull the plug’ if the patient’s condition was considered hopeless, a practice which is now broadly accepted. However, these wills did not eliminate the potential problem of individuals being kept alive for incredibly lengthy periods of time in permanent unconscious states as there were often no provisions for withdrawing nutrition and hydration when no other life support interventions were necessary. This oversight has been largely addressed through power of attorney. “The durable power of attorney allows an individual to designate in writing a proxy or surrogate decision maker (the attorney-in-fact) who has the same degree of authority to consent to or decline life-sustaining treatment as the patient would if he or she were competent” (Rich, 2001: 68-69).

While this, too, has its drawbacks in that there is frequently no room to designate the individual’s wishes to any great extent, the debate regarding euthanasia has moved beyond the realm of the unconscious patient and into the realm of patient rights. Today, the debate centers on individual autonomy, whether or not patients who suffer from extreme pain and have a terminal or degenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s, AIDS and multiple sclerosis have the right to an assisted death of the type and time of their own choosing. (Rich, 2001).

Only one state, Oregon, and three countries, Switzerland, Belgium and The Netherlands, allow assisted suicide. The law in Oregon was challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court early last year and was upheld by a vote of six to three. In 2001, former President Bush attempted to derail the Oregon law permitting euthanasia stating that assisted suicide wasn’t a ‘legitimate medical purpose.’ The justices, however, were not convinced by Bush’s argument. The Oregon laws are shaped after those in the Netherlands and are designed to ensure second opinions have been consulted and there is an imminent presumption of death within a reasonable time frame of when the procedure is requested. In addition, the patient must make multiple requests for the procedure, all spaced out over a period of weeks and must be willing to administer an overdose of drugs themselves. (Hurst & Mauron, 2003).

Assisted suicide by physicians and non-physicians has been legal in Switzerland since WWII. In addition, three organizations within the country have been established to aid terminally ill patients. They provide patient counseling as well as the drugs for use in the procedure. Lethal injections, however, are not allowed. The unusual situation in Switzerland holds that assisted suicide is allowed as long as a physician is not a part of the process. Euthanasia has been legal in Belgium since 2002. Each case must be reviewed by two physicians before the procedure is carried out by either ingestion or injection. In The Netherlands, euthanasia has been legal for four years but has been tolerated for two decades. (Hurst & Mauron, 2003).

The euthanasia debate embraces compelling and impassioned arguments on both sides of the issue. Proponents of euthanasia are concerned with human suffering. Many diseases such as cancer cause a lingering and excruciatingly painful death. Watching a loved one as they wither away from the disease eating away at their organs is tough enough on family members, but to see them suffer even when drugs are administered is unbearable not to mention what the patient must endure. This emotionally and physically torturous situation is played out in every hospital, every day of the year but serves no purpose. To many, it is unimaginable to allow anyone, for example, a sweet old grandmother who has spent her life caring for others to spend the last six months of their life enduring constant pain, unable to control bodily functions, convulsing, coughing, vomiting, etc.

The psychological pain for both the family and patient is unimaginably horrific as well. If grandma were a dog, most all would agree that the only humane option would be to ‘put her to sleep.’ U.S. citizens are guaranteed certain rights but not the right to ‘die with dignity.’ This right is not prohibited by the Constitution but by religious zealots who evidently put the quality of life of a dog above grandma’s. Patients suffering from Alzheimer’s may not suffer physical pain but endure a different type of pain and usually for a long period of time. Alzheimer’s is a degenerative disease causing the patient to ramble incoherently and lose their memory. Many people who led vibrant, active and purposeful lives are remembered by their family members in this state. Proponents of euthanasia also argue that the time of health care professionals, of which there is a perpetual shortage, especially nurses, could be used in a more productive manner such as on patients who are not certain to die. Numerous studies have established that understaffed medical care facilities provide a diminished quality of care to all (“Massachusetts Patients”, 2005).

Those that could benefit from quality care sacrifice their health for those that are suffering a slow, agonizing and undignified death. The cost of health care overall would be reduced as people with no hope of survival no longer drain the available resources and manpower which translates to lower insurance rates. Health care costs have skyrocketed over the past decade and as the ‘baby boom generation’ ages, this problem will increase exponentially which does not benefit anyone. It’s a burden on everyone especially on the family that must pay it. Elderly, terminal patients do not want to be responsible for the financial ruin of their children, but do not have the option to call for an end. “Economic factors must be considered in terms of the patient, their families and society. Patients may have depleted their insurance due to an extended illness, have no insurance and may be a financial burden on their families. (Simon, Rita J. Scherer, 1999 p. 21)

Euthanasia also allows for organs such as livers, hearts and kidneys to be harvested for transplant into otherwise healthy individuals with a potential for many more years of life. While it may be emotionally morbid to think of things in such terms, in a world where medical miracles can occur everyday that permit another human being a chance at a more fulfilling life, these considerations must also be made. In the real world, it is more likely that an individual will opt first to save the young child from an oncoming bus rather than an old man. By the same token, it seems incredible that today’s society would opt to allow a child to die so that a terminal patient might be forced to live a few more agonizing months. This, in effect, is the result of not allowing people to die with dignity. Many terminally ill people choose to end their own life to evade the previously discussed detriments of a terminal illness. Suicide rates are by far the highest among the elderly population for this reason.

Opponents to legal euthanasia rightly claim that the practice would be in violation of the Hippocratic Oath. (Kisha, 2005 p. 87 )It also would cause a devaluation of human life. Life is held as sacred in the U.S. more so than in many other countries therefore the decisions other countries make regarding euthanasia are not relevant. The legalization could lead to the assisted suicide of patients whose conditions are not necessarily terminal. Though the vast majority of doctors are ethical beyond reproach, not all are. It is common knowledge that some doctors write prescriptions to drug addicts. ‘Diet pills’ are handed out to ‘patients’ who do not have a weight problem but are simply feeding a habit and the doctor is well aware of this. If a minority of doctors can be convinced to prescribe illicit drugs then it is not difficult to imagine a situation where a doctor can be convinced to assist in the suicide of a person who is temporarily depressed due to emotional or psychological reasons. There is a big difference in the two situations, however.

A person can decide to end their drug abuse but suicide is irreversible. While most doctors are ethical and are dedicated to quality patient care, insurance companies are concerned with profit, not patients, and may begin to pressure doctors into ending the lives of patients who are costing them thousands of dollars per week. The evidence of this possible eventuality is universally understood by health insurance paying Americans. “Because of the nature of managed health care in America, we are presented with a serious dilemma. Who should be the judge of who should live and who should die? Should insurance conglomerates and powerful HMO’s determine who is worthy and who is not?” (Kisha, 2005 p. 95) Insurance companies already have too much power to influence health care decisions. Legalized euthanasia would only increase this power.

Another likely scenario of legal suicide involves patients who are told that they have a few months to live and decide to not endure this remaining time and end their life sooner rather than later. This not only deprives the family precious time with the patient, but eradicates any chance of recovery or remission of the disease. Plus, suppose the doctor made a mistake in their diagnosis? No one could ever know if they did or didn’t but this possibility would always weigh heavily on the minds of the loved ones left behind. Another consideration is one of religion. If a patient decides to depart this life expeditiously, many of his or her family members could be against this decision based on personal religious convictions. What may have been a good relationship with loved ones throughout an entirety of life would be soured at the very end. (Campbell, 1992)

The unfortunate reality is the majority of people in the U.S. die a ‘bad death.’ A study determined that “more often than not, patients died in pain, their desires concerning treatment neglected, after spending 10 days or more in an intensive care unit” (Horgan, 1996). Opponents of a doctor-assisted suicide law often cite the potential for doctor abuse. However, recent Oregon and UK laws show that you can craft reasonable laws that prevent abuse and still protect the value of human life. For example, laws could be drafted that requires the approval of two doctors plus a psychologist, a reasonable waiting period, a family members’ written consent and limits the procedure to specific medical conditions.

Works Cited

Campbell, Courtney S. Religious Ethics and Active Euthanasia in a Pluralistic Society.

Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal – Volume 2, Number 3, 1992, pp. 253-277.

Horgan, John. “Right to Die.” Scientific American p. 36. Scientific American, Inc. 1996.

Hurst, Samia A. & Mauron, Alex. “Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Switzerland: Allowing a Role for Non-Physicians.” British Medical Journal. Vol. 326, N. 7383, pp. 271-27. 2003.

Kisha, Madeline “Free Rein to Kill: Euthanasia in America” iUniverse, Inc. 2005

“Massachusetts Patients Say Nurse Understaffing Harms Patient Safety, Undermines Quality Care.” Massachusetts Nurses Association. 2005.

Naji, Mostafa H; Lazarine, Neil G. & Pugh, Meredith D “Euthanasia, the Terminal Patient and the Physician’s Role.” Journal of Religion and Health. Vol. 20, N. 3, pp. 186-200. 1981.

Rich, Ben A. “Strange Bedfellows: How Medical Jurisprudence has Influenced Medical Ethics and Medical Practice.” New York: Springer. 2001.

Simon, Rita; J. Scherer “Euthanasia and the Right to Die: A Comparative View” Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.; 1 edition, 1999.

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Essay: The Quality of Mercy Killing

If it were only a matter of law, the public would not feel stranded. He killed her, after all. Roswell Gilbert, a 76-year-old retired electronics engineer living in a seaside condominium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., considered murdering his wife Emily for at least a month before shooting her through the head with Luger as she sat on their couch. The Gilberts had been husband and wife for 51 years. They were married in 1934, the year after Calvin Coolidge died, the year after Prohibition was lifted, the year that Hank Aaron was born. At 73, Emily had Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis; her spinal column was gradually collapsing. Roswell would not allow her to continue life as “a suffering animal,” so he committed what is called a mercy killing The jury saw only the killing; they felt Gilbert had mercy on himself. He was sentenced to 25 years with no chance of parole, which would make him 101 by the time he got out. The Governor has been asked to grant clemency. Most Floridians polled hope that Gilbert will go free.

Not that there ever was much of a legal or practical question involved. Imagine the precedent set by freeing a killer simply because he killed for love. Othello killed for love, though his passion was loaded with a different motive. Does any feeling count, or is kindness alone an excuse for murder? Or age: maybe someone has to be 76 and married 51 years to establish his sincerity. There are an awful lot of old people and long marriages in Florida. A lot of Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis as well. Let Gilbert loose, the fear is, and watch the run on Lugers.

Besides, the matter of mercy killing is getting rough and out of hand. Nobody seems to use poison anymore. In Fort Lauderdale two years ago, a 79-year-old man shot his 62-year-old wife in the stairwell of a hospital; like Emily Gilbert, she was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. In San Antonio four years ago, a 69-year-old man shot his 72-year-old brother to death in a nursing home. Last June a man in Miami put two bullets in the heart of his three-year-old daughter who lay comatose after a freak accident. An organization that studies mercy killings says that nine have occurred this year alone. You cannot have a murder every time someone feels sorry for a loved one in pain. Any fool knows that.

Yet you also feel foolish watching a case like Gilbert’s (if any case can be said to be like another) because, while both feet are planted firmly on the side of law and common sense, both are firmly planted on Gilbert’s side as well. The place the public really stands is nowhere: How can an act be equally destructive of society and wholly human? The reason anyone would consider going easy on Gilbert is that we can put ourselves in his shoes, can sit at his wife’s bedside day after day, watching the Florida sun gild the furniture and listening to the Atlantic lick the beach like a cat. Emily dozes. He looks at her in a rare peaceful pose and is grateful for the quiet.

Or he dreams back to when such a scene would have been unimaginable: she, sharp as a tack, getting the better of him in an argument; he, strong as a bull, showing off by swinging her into the air–on a beach, perhaps, like the one in front of the condominium where old couples like themselves walk in careful slow motion at the water’s edge. Since the case became a cause, photographs of the Gilberts have appeared on television, she in formal gown, he in tails; they, older, in a restaurant posing deadpan for a picture for no reason, the way people do in restaurants. In a way the issue here is age: mind and body falling away like slabs of sand off a beach cliff. If biology declares war, have people no right to a pre-emptive strike? In the apartment he continues to stare at her who, from time to time, still believes they are traveling together in Spain.

Now he wonders about love. He loves his wife; he tells her so; he has told her so for 51 years. And he thinks of what he meant by that: her understanding of him, her understanding of others, her sense of fun. Illness has replaced those qualities in her with screams and a face of panic. Does he love her still? Of course, he says; he hates the disease, but he loves his wife. Or–and this seems hard–does he only love what he remembers of Emily? Is the frail doll in the bed an impostor? But no; this is Emily too, the same old Emily hidden somewhere under the decaying cells and in the folds of the painkillers. It is Emily and she is suffering and he swore he would always look after her.

He considers an irony: you always hurt the one you love. By what act or nonact would he be hurting his wife more? He remembers news stories he has read of distraught people in similar positions, pulling the plugs on sons and husbands or assisting in the suicides of desperate friends. He sympathizes, but with a purpose; he too is interested in precedents. Surely, he concludes, morality swings both ways here. What is moral for the group cannot always be moral for the individual, or there would be no individuality, no exceptions, even if the exceptions only prove the rule. Let the people have their rules. What harm would it do history to relieve Emily’s pain? A little harm, perhaps, no more than that.

This is what we see in the Gilbert case, the fusion of our lives with theirs in one grand and pathetic cliché in which all lives look pretty much alike. We go round and round with Gilbert: Gilbert suddenly wondering if Emily might get better, if one of those white-coated geniuses will come up with a cure. Gilbert realizing that once Emily is gone, he will go too, since her way of life, however wretched, was their way of life. He is afraid for them both. In The Merchant of Venice Portia says that mercy is “twice blessed;/ It blesses him that gives and him that takes.” The murder committed, Gilbert does not feel blessed. At best, he feels he did right, which the outer world agrees with and denies.

Laws are unlikely to be changed by such cases: for every modification one can think of, there are too many loopholes and snares. What Gilbert did in fact erodes the whole basis of law, which is to keep people humane and civilized. Yet Gilbert was humane, civilized and wrong: a riddle. In the end we want the law intact and Gilbert free, so that society wins on both counts. What the case proves, however, is that society is helpless to do anything for Gilbert, for Emily or for itself. All we can do is recognize a real tragedy when we see one, and wonder, perhaps, if one bright morning 1934 Gilbert read of a mercy killing in the papers, leaned earnestly across the breakfast table and told his new bride: “I couldn’t do that. I could never do that.” –By Roger Rosenblatt

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MORAL DILEMMAS IN REAL LIFE pp 55–67 Cite as

MERCY DEATH OR KILLING

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Part of the book series: Law and Philosophy Library ((LAPS,volume 74))

One of the most acute issues in current medical ethics is the problem of euthanasia. This term originally comes from the Greek word that originally meant “a good death” ( eu —well, Thanatos —death). Needless to say that in every discussion about life and death we hold the a priori assumption that “life is good and that existing life should be preserved as a matter of course, unless some overriding principle supersedes the innate value of an ongoing life.” 1 This assumption is one of the reasons for the immense difficulties of the discussion about “good death.” The issue of euthanasia became extremely complicated during the 20th century due to rapid technological progress that enabled maintaining the lives of terminal patients, even unconscious terminal patients, for extended periods of time. However, while we may possess powerful life-prolonging medical technology, on the ethical level “we are unable to find meaning in death or to bring our lives to a meaningful close.” 2 Thus, death as a whole, and euthanasia in particular, have become complex and painful issues in modern society.

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Sensitive Topics: How to Write a Mercy Killing Essay

Don’t Forget to Study a Sample Argumentative Euthanasia Essay

If you have no idea how to approach the topic, you may try and find some examples on the Internet. Although it will be a really bad decision to copy/paste any of them and try to pass it for your own writing, reading one may provide you with the much necessary insight and help you get to grips with the issue. If you have a strong opinion on the subject, you should probably look for an example of argumentative essay that promotes another point of view – when you see how wrong the author is and in what respects, it will be easier for you to build up your own argumentation.

Your Own Take on Mercy Killing Essay

There are a lot of possible approaches you may use when dealing with the topic of euthanasia. But whatever opinion you share, don’t forget that you shouldn’t found your essay on emotions, no matter how much this particular topic asks for it. What you need is real argumentation, supported with facts, statistics, examples from real life and so on. For example, if you support euthanasia, you may mention the number of patients slowly dying of incurable diseases with no hope for recovery who could be otherwise spared the pain and indignity of their position if they were allowed to die. If you are against it, you may mention the examples of people waking up from coma long after the doctors had given up on them and told their loved ones that they may just as well pull the plug on them. Study a sample argumentative essay on the topic and think about the arguments presented by another person – maybe you can disprove them? As you may see, the possibilities are boundless, especially if you have a strong opinion on the subject in question.

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Do You Agree or Disagree With Euthanasia or Mercy Killing?

Euthanasia is the deliberate advancement of a person’s death for the benefit of that person. In most cases euthanasia is carried out because the person asks to die, but there are cases where a person can’t make such a request.

A person who undergoes euthanasia is usually terminally ill. Euthanasia can be carried out either by doing something, such as administering a lethal injection, or by not doing something necessary to keep the person alive (for example failing to keep their feeding tube going).

In my opinion it’s not moral to kill a person even if they are terminally ill because this person need a chance to live along and see his life, but there are people that disagree.

I have a debate in my college about this topic and I’d like to hear if you agree or disagree with euthanasia.

All the Yes points:

It frees up hospital beds and resources, it ends the patient life because he/she is already terminally ill, it relieves suffering, right to choose, relatives spared the agony of watching their loved ones deteriorate beyond recognition, it reduces the spread of diseases, the relationship between law and medical ethics, the ethical safeguards of pas, discrimination in palliative care and how pas can end it, how to save a life, all the no points:, it is not moral to end the patient’s life because he has the right to live longer, it is murder, sanctity of life, making the decision for yourself, or others, voluntary euthanasia gives doctors too much power, a lack of responsbility, the price they pay, the worst evil, yes because….

Terminally ill patients, or those in a permanent vegetative state, can take up valuable hospital beds for those who do want to get better. If they do not want to live, then they should not be allowed to take the beds and care of those that do. Long term palliative care for the terminally ill is a huge and ultimately wasteful drain on medical resources. Why waste these precious resources on someone who has expressed a desire to die, when they could be improving the life of someone who wants to live? In addition, these resources could be re-allocated to further the research of the specific disease the patient is suffering in order to allow future generations to either not have the disease or increase the quality level of care for future patients of this disease by alleviating the symptoms of the disease at the very least. In addition, if the patient is an organ donator and the organs are healthy, it may save up several lives which are ultimately invaluable. working in the care system with people with dementia i have to say in many cases its cruel to keep them alive, we are kinder to our pets when so ill. This is an awful disease which takes any quality of life away, One lady i know has been bed ridden for 5 years unable to communicate , move her limbs or anything if the nazis had done this to people it would be a war crime. This is not about god or any other belief its about common sense. Everyone should have the right to say while they are still of good mind if they get this or another illness at a certain stage they have their life ended, What i see every day is slow often distressing painful deaths which is no more than cruelty,we really have to change the way we think

No because…

Just because beds in hospitals are needed by others is no reason to allow a person to die! Some can be cared for at home, or in special hospices. If we stopped caring for the terminally ill at all where would we draw the line? Is treating the elderly also a waste of resources because they are nearing the end of their lives anyway? I think that to describe palliative care as a “huge and ultimately wasteful drain on medical resources” is rather harsh! I’m not sure that families of the terminally ill would agree with you there.

Terminally ill means terminally ill. This means that the patient, unless an absolute miracle happens, will die eventually regardless of how many interventions it takes to prolong his or her life expectancy. This time and money could be used to help others or cure others who aren’t mortally wounded or diseased. The rebuttal presupposes that an individual needs to wait for a hypothetical existence of a treatment being developed on an assumption that decisions that are finalized is not a justification for terminating a patient’s life at one’s explicit consent. If decisions made in your life were to be stagnated each and every time in order for an opportunity to arise everytime, the basis for this principle would not be a good one at the very least. Wait one day, wait one week, wait one month, we’ll stay back and see. An indecisiveness for something which might not exist within one’s lifetime would make a claim for which things ought to be reversible or decisions ought to be remade in order for things to be “controlled” in a manner. In this respect, of the practice of “Euthanasia”, death is the ultimate goal of avoidance and thus a finalized decision of upholding pain until the very last minute of life in respect to waiting for a treatment outweighs the ultimate outcome of death. The opposition makes a claim that reversibility of a decision that may be regretted later due to it being finalized is better on these grounds, however, if life was controllable in all aspects and under all possible circumstances, we were able to scroll back on our decisions, what meaningful would arise out of the circumstances for which our decisions are made on? What would the product of our actions, time and energy be? Aren’t these decisions philosophically what identify us as who we are even to the extent of a life or death situation? Also, even if a cure was possible, what complications will arise thereafter? What if the patient is of old age and will die anyways but has already lived a long healthy life? It cannot be justified to deem that waiting for something which might or might not exist in a future to occur outweighs the prospect of pain. Wait for a miracle “cure”, wait for a revolutionary science “discovery” to solve our problems, wait for a technological “innovation”…this line of thought may be wise in some situations but not necessarily in the case of Euthanasia.

The patient may be terminally ill but this statement aside from repeating other points discounts the possibility of new treatments being developed in time to cure the illness he or she is facing.

If a terminal patient faces a long, slow, painful death, surely it is much kinder to spare them this kind of suffering and allow them to end their life comfortably. Pain medications used to allieviate symptoms often have unpleasant side effects or may leave the patient in a state of sedation. It is not as if they are really ‘living’ during this time; they are merely waiting to die. They should have the right to avoid this kind of torturous existence and be allowed to die in a humane way. Appeal to “naturalism” is a very bad argument. We take medical pills, we put up an umbrella to avoid having rain fall on us, we try to not live in a tribal manner like our ancestors where we deem ourselves to live a civilized life where we do not simply kill eachother and rape eachother because its the “natural conclusion” of our actions. Suffering may a part of the human condition and it can be argued to be useful in preventing us from self-destructive habits, physical dismemberment or physiological damage due to negligence of the body, etc. However, does that justify that we ought to endure a pointless pain just because it must be part of life’s experience? Just because life is unfair doesn’t mean we should start treating others unfairly, or just because sex is a part of the human experience, that we have an obligation to perform intercourse. Also, if an argument of biological existence is made, then why is it limited to humans in the treatment of this manner? What is the difference between existence and living? Do people want to live in a state where they cannot progress, breathe, talk, hear, see, suffer from paralysis and slowly die? People do want to live, and merely existing is not enough. If we just had to exist, then why do we need a spectrum of other human experiences? Why do not we just limit ourselves to sleep, eat, reproduce, etc? There is more to life than existing in such a state.

There is a straight answer for this: Suffering is part of the human condition and part of life’s experience. Also medication can be improved to help a person’s quality of life and make their deaths as humane as possible. Futhermore even if a person is in a state of sedation they are still biologically existing and still have what some would say an obligation to live their life until its natural conclusion. i think that it is our fate and nothing happens in theis world just like that for no reason. Everything in this world happen for a reason that could be beneficial for that person but he or she may not realise it. You may say know that how if a person is suffering severly from ilness would that be a good thing for him or her ?? Bu toyu never know. I mean that i take as murder. We all say and agree that murder is something really bad and is not allowed so how come killing a person is the right thing?? Even if that person is suffering.What would you call it? Wouldn’t you call it killing. I will say that life is something complicated. It is not something that we could ever realise and understand 100 percent but each and every single person lives for a reason and when someone would die i definitly don’t have the choice to choose whether to kill that person or not even if he or she is suffering. Maybe yes a person would absolutely like to avoid suffering and have a relaxed life but sometimes and mostly always things don’t always turn out to be exactly like what we want. So I think it depends on how a person believes in God if he or she have faith in God then they will know that this is the will of God and will take it. We can’t say that there is a life with no suffering each and every person in his life have suffered in their life but it is how you deal with them that matters and not to run away because you’re afraid to face them or afraid that you would suffer because they alwaus say that you will always face your biggest fears in your life. So i would never kill a person and take the blame for it my entire life as i might someday sit alone and ask myself a question, did i kill my mother??

Our legal system accepts that people have a legal right to choose when to die, as demonstrated by the fact that suicide is legal. This right is denied to those who are incapable of taking their own lives unaided. Legalising euthanasia would redress this balance. Our legal system also recognises that assisting a suicide attempt is a crime. Human beings are independent biological entities, and as an adult, have the right to take and carry out decisions about themselves. A human being decides who they spend their life with, their career path, where they live, whether to bear children. So what is the harm in allowing a terminally ill patient to decide for themselves whether they die in a hospital or in their own home? Surely a terminally ill sufferer is better qualified to decide for themselves whether they are better off dead or alive? Their disease makes them so crippled they cannot commit suicide alone. A quote from The Independent in March 2002 stated that “So long as the patient is lucid, and his or her intent is clear beyond doubt, there need be no further questions” [[ The Independent” Editiorial Make euthansia available for those who can choose it http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/make-euthanasia-available-for-those-who-can-choose-it-653034.html Accessed 03.09]]. Human beings should be as free as possible and unnecessary restraints on human rights are strongly discouraged. The opposition makes an arguement of inclination. However, it ought to be rejected that people, intuitions or legal entities should advocate the death of an individual. The life an individual rests in the considerations of the consequences of an individual’s actions. If we deny them this right, we make a claim that we own their life. We own the product of their time, energy and utility. This is something we must never fall into. Although it may be said from a financial sense, things aren’t good; we do attempt to put human life in an invaluable scale. It may be said that human beings are precious for various reasons, but the value of an individual’s life can never be determined by the state, another individual or entity. Even though life insurances are in place, the individual’s self-assigned worth is what gives the individual its own worth for its very own existence.

The right to choose is not something which our legal system has “accepted” we all have. This is far from the truth. Suicide was decriminalised in the UK solely for the reason that it is not a punishable offence – it is of course impossible to punish a dead person. This is by no means a reflection of the general opinion of society. Furthermore the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the case of Diane Pretty that a person does not has a recognised right to die as stated in this quote: “No right to die, whether at the hands of a third person or with the assistance of a public authority could be derived.” [[ BBC Online News “British woman denied right to die” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1957396.stm%5D%5D Unfortunately giving any sort of ‘right to chose’ also denies a right to choose for others. If Euthanasia is allowed then people who are terminally ill, critically injured or simply old may well feel compelled to choose and option they don’t really want to take. If Euthanasia is allowed in some cases these people whose treatment may be costing relatives or the state a lot of money may well feel that they are not worth the cost of keeping them alive. This is not something we would want anyone to feel as in essence it takes away their freedom of choice on the matter.

A person dying from cancer feels weak; exhausted and loses the will to fight. Muscles waste away, appearance changes and the patient starts to look older. A cancer patient becomes confused, no longer recognising family and friends. Motor neurone disease causes the sufferer to lose mobility in the limbs, having difficulty with speech, swallowing and breathing. Those suffering with Huntington’s Disease develop symptoms of dementia, such as loss of rational thought and poor concentration. Involuntary movements, difficulties with speaking and swallowing, weight loss, depression and anxiety may also occur. Families of individuals suffering with such diseases see their bright, happy relative reduced to a shadow of their former self. Their loved one suffers a slow and painful death. Surely, it is kinder to put a mother, father, brother or sister out of their misery and allow them to die a peaceful death, as is their last wish.

Even if their relatives may be suffering from watching their loved one’s condition detiriorate, they have no right to either decide or put pressure on a person to end their own life because of their own sufffering. Just as it may be the individuals right to die it is also the right of the individuals right to “rage against the dieing of the light” with their support of their family so to speak. While it may be an ‘agony to watch a loved one deteriorate’ many will also want to spend as long as possible with their loved ones, and more than likely a family will be split on the matter meaning that the views of the family would have to have no impact on the matter.

When a person is sick, there a chance that a contagious agent exists within the host. The longer the duration that the individual is kept alive, it may increase the risk of others being affected by the disease if the individual is not handled properly.

isn’t that what a hospital has i mean many people are sick and have diseases which are contagious but they try to get cured that’s why they go to hospitals. This is not a reason for not keeping them alive because what if they actually get cured and got the chance to start a new life. I don’t think that it will REDUCE the spread of diseases becasue there are other people in the hospital that may suffer from different diseases which may be contagious right? so does it stop on terminally ill people that they have a contagious disease that’s why they should be killed??

At the core of a legalized physician assisted suicide (PAS) system is the principal that medical ethics should be governed and regulated by the professionals instead of lawmakers. A PAS system puts the expertise of the doctor and the experience of the patient at the forefront of the issue and views both perspectives rightly as the most credible in a given situation. The law cannot adapt to the specificity and multitude of ethical problems that arise on a situational basis. The law can only take into account circumstances that it foresees and can elaborate on. The highly personal and situational nature of this issue deems it insufficient for legislation, which exists outside the realm of the personal. The foundation of medical ethics relies upon the understanding of the consent (when applicable) of the patient to the procedure and the discretion, judgment, and experience of the medical profession to whom the patient has entrusted their care. The basis of good and ethical health and health systems relies upon the integrity of this. [[http://www.ur.umich.edu/9697/May20_97/artcl10.htm]]

Laws are codifications of what morals exist in a society. Side Opposition wonders how exactly ‘Medical Ethics’ would be defined in the status quo anywhere in the world if these things were not defined through the law. Furthermore, most nations have ways in which the law can in fact be changed, thus giving law the ability to adapt to the specificity and multitude of problems that do exist in regards to health care. Also, without the law then attempts to even test a society with PAS wouldn’t exists anyway. Simply put, the law is what safeguards patients, doctors, and everyone else in the medical field, anywhere. And still, any change in health care can directly affect not just what humans can do, but how humans think about being human (and, therefore, what rights and obligations humans should have). As issues of between medical ethics and the law come into play the importance of prudent use of law to protect health and safety becomes central. Finally, issues of social justice and resource allocation are presented more starkly in the medical care context than in any other context. [[http://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/health/index.htm]]

To ensure that a system maintains the highest ethical standards, numerous safeguards will be implemented. To begin, The patient’s condition must be either a terminal one (meaning incurable) with no hope of recovery and death imminent (Two doctors must overlook the case to verify the diagnosis and prognosis) or suffering irreversible medical conditions that cause them suffering in ways they can no longer tolerate. Secondly, Euthanasia can only be undertaken at the request or with the permission of the patient (Oregon provides a good example by requiring two written requests at least 15 days apart, an oral request and other safeguards to ensure the capability of the patient to make such a serious decision. Also, two doctors must verify the decision-making capability of the patient.) Lastly, Doctors must perform the task of providing means and administering but only if necessary, otherwise the patient will self-administer. [[http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/pas/docs/year1.pdf]]

In the medical profession, there is an unavoidable problem dealing with the prognosis of ‘terminal’ patients. Many problems arise when physicians try to diagnose a disease that will be terminal or try to recognize the terminal phases of an illness. For example, a person who has recently been infected with HIV can be considered to have a condition that will be terminal, yet 10% to 17% of such persons are still without sequelae of immunodeficiency at 20 years. Cardiac disease is the leading cause of death in the United States [34], but persons with atherosclerotic disease are not considered to be terminally ill even though their deaths may occur at any moment. This has much to do with why PAS is very hard to implement. These definitions will differ not just in the US, but in other nations around the world. At the point we recognize this to be true, proposition would be granting the right to PAS for some people, and yet not for others. This is why we look to palliative care, because, at the very least, the standards are clear. [[http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/126/2/146]] Furthermore, we say that patients who are terminally ill may have a single disease process (such as a brain tumor) that will, in and of itself, cause death; they may have a disease (such as leukemia) that weakens them to the point where a second condition (such as pneumonia) may overwhelm and kill them; or they may have a combination of diseases, each of which makes the other incurable (for example, severe lung disease and cardiac disease). The prognosis will alter as the patient makes decisions about treatment of the primary disease or intercurrent illnesses. But let’s talk about Oregon: In the first year Oregon voters put PAS into law, 15 patients had undergone PAS. However, only four of the candidates had psychological or psychiatric consultations. Eleven others did not. Since the way in which PAS has been provided in a current system has not been shown to be systematic, it has shown to not be fair either. Surgeons don’t operate without informing a patient of all their options, or doctors do not prescribe prescriptions without allowing for other options, yet PAS physicians have been able to let some patients undergo consulting while others don’t have as much help. Because of this, PAS is inherently unfair on the basis that some patients will have access to more knowledge than others – this is important because all patients are attempting to make the same choice.

Those who have terminal disease that are less common often face more suffering. Without the lobbies and charities behind diseases like lung cancer, brain cancer, etc., palliative care cannot provide the same Quality of Life that other better-funded palliative measures do. [“This study suggests that patients with end stage COPD have significantly impaired quality of life and emotional well being which may not be as well met as those of patients with lung cancer, nor do they receive holistic care appropriate to their needs.” Those in the third world are the most discriminated against in the area of palliative care. They are denied basic analgesics because of their economic situation. “Morphine is a cheap, safe analgesic, yet most patients in developing countries are denied access to this drug.” Palliative care is also weakened in the Third World by “the lack of effective models for…delivery.” The palliative care options are often limited to those available to the family. Though physicians may be available, long-term palliative care is often ineffective as the physicians must respond to a large area of need and the constant support is left up to the family of the patient, who are limited in resources and training. Minority groups are less likely to be given palliative care. Dalits, African Americans, and other minority groups are systemically given poor health care coverage and treatment. The result is that they face more emergency care rather than preventative and more inpatient non-palliative deaths. Without the option for PAS, minority groups often face alienated deaths in the institutions that have alienated them.In the case of the Roma people, both an ethnic and a lifestyle minority are discriminated against without access to PAS. Because of their nomadic way of life, the European healthcare system allows them to fall through the many cracks. When they plead for the right to die, they are denied PAS on “ethical” grounds. The European healthcare system, like many worldwide, is inherently biased to those who have a lifestyle of the majority, i.e. with a permanent residence. [[http://thorax.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/55/12/1000]] [[http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1295230&pageindex=1]] [[http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1295230&pageindex=2#page ]] [[http://www.dalitsolidarity.org/health_overview.php]] [[http://books.google.com/books?id=XKQ-OV72P7YC&lpg=PA153&ots=GyTOY7p0K8&dq=palliative%20care%20blacks&pg=PA153 ]] [[http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/system_frustrates_terminally/ ]]

A inequality in palliative care in places around the world is not enough to justify its circumvention. If anything, the option of PAS not only decreases the growth of the success some palliative care has been able to prevent, but it will prevent it’s growth in the future as well. Legalizing physician-assisted suicide is merely a part of the debate about improving end-of-life care. It cannot be viewed as a quick and easy fix, or a way to protect patients from inadequate care arrangements. Too many people still suffer needlessly, often because doctors and families just do not know how to serve people who are dying. The main problem lies with a lack of knowledge. Many suffer because doctors fail to provide adequate medication for pain. To legalize physician-assisted suicide would make real reform, such as better pain control, less likely. And ultimately hurts the growth of the medical industry. Without the reform of pain medication, patients end up with no prospects to live well while dying. In this scenario, making suicide an option is not offering a genuine choice but instead forcing a decision on the patient who again loses rights under this plan the affirmative have presented. [[http://www.growthhouse.org/mortals/mort2526.html]]

In addition, if there are those whose death is inevitable who would like to be put out of their suffering early, it means that doctors will have a chance to examine their vital organs to see if they can be donated. At later stages of many terminal illnesses, organs are severely weakened and, in some cases, failing – it may not be possible to use them at that point. This will help alleviate the long waiting list there is for organ donations. Thus permitting assisted suicide through euthanasia will not only put the victim out of his/her suffering earlier, but may also help save more lives. More than 102,389 men women and children are waiting for organ transplants in the US alone with only 14,203 eligible donors. PAS is an effective and ethical avenue to decrease this vast and fatal gap. [[http://www.lifelineofohio.org/donation/resources/statistics.aspx]]

Regardless of whether or not a patient decides to under PAS, they have already made the decision to be an organ donor, or not, well before the procedure. There has not been a correlation shown between the number of people willing to be an organ donor if they underwent PAS (From the Oregon studies). We would also say that a push for organs would decrease the amount of care given even with a PAS. Because now the focus is not on the patient but on their organs. In the status quo, people who are registered donors are at times kept on life support against (against their will, something we though, the proposition did not like) to determine the organs sustainability for transplant. Finally, if patients who have been cleared for PAS under the guidelines set out by the proposition, then they are already terminally ill, and thus, have failing organs already, not in good enough condition for transplant. [[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/03/AR2007040302062.html]]

When Michelangelo was asked how he created his masterpiece David, he simply said “I saw David through the stone and I simply chipped away everything that was not David”. Since we on the proposition are on a similar pursuit as Michelangelo in creating a masterpiece, lets first look at what supporting physician-assisted suicide is not: 1) Supporting PAS is not supporting the end of palliative care. The opposition has stated time and time again how palliative care can be a good thing but just needs reform. This offers no direct clash with our plan and our line of argumentation throughout the entire debate. We recognize that palliative care as a viable option for patients, but we also have pointed out some of the pitfalls of palliative care and how PAS can be a benefit to those who have to suffer in these pits in some countries currently. Reform can be achieved in both PAS and palliative care under our plan. Fundamentally, we respect the preference of the patient to choose whichever option. The proposition is on the side of options and a death with dignity for citizens. We denounce the self-proclaiming moral arbiters that would force citizens to die only on the terms that they deem “natural” and “right” in the face of intense suffering and unbearable pain being felt by the patient. 2) Supporting PAS is not supporting the disproportional killing of coerced poor people and stigmatized groups. While this concern is certainly respectable, it is based simply on predicative fears. These fears have been discredited with the empirical evidence that we have provided from countries and states in which PAS is already supported. While we support these groups getting access to PAS, we certainly aren’t forcing them and neither is any outside party, as the data shows. 3) Supporting PAS is not supporting new cultural norms or ideologies that declare some lives are ‘not worth living’. What PAS promotes is that citizen’s are in control of the choice of how they want to end their lives. This idea finds opposition not in the prevailing attitudes of the people, but in the ideologies that someone or something should be in control other than the actual individual, whether it be the government, religion or someone’s definition of nature. It is time to break free from the shackles of these ideals into a world where citizens are individually empowered by supporting the right-to-die. Day by day more and more governments and citizens are recognizing this right and are strongly disavowing the antiquated positions that our opposition has argued for. Now that we have removed what supporting assisted suicide is not, let’s look at what it is: 1) Supporting PAS is supporting a system that addresses the highly personal and situational manner of this issue while enforcing ethical safeguards that protect against any form of abuse to the utmost degree possible. Both sides agree that laws can indeed change, but when should these laws should change is where the debate lies. We refuse to maintain archaic laws in which the consent of the patient and expertise of the doctor is largely ignored. We believe that to support PAS is supporting a flexible and ethical system that can address this complex situation with the patient and doctor in mind and at the forefront. 2) Supporting PAS is supporting the idea that it is the state’s role to create conditions where citizens can make optimal decisions for themselves amongst viable options. We do not support an atmosphere where the state destroys options and makes the decision for its citizens, especially on the most sacred thing a person has, life. 3) Supporting PAS is supporting a system that not only ends lives more humanely, but saves lives as well. We are not advocating a vast increase in quantity but rather a quality increase in organ donation. We have stated that if these terminally ill patients are forced to live prolonged lives, vital organs will become increasingly weaker even if the disease does not directly affect specific organs. The system allows organ donation to be completed more efficiently, effectively and even at all in some cases. The proposition offers quality of life over just mere quantity, choice on how to preserve this quality, and a way to preserve life of many people on organ donation waiting lists. We strongly believe we offer a far better system for these very reasons, masterpiece or not.

Patients that are in comas and have not indicated that they wish to die have the right to continue thier lives until the natural end. Who are we to say that they should die when it is convenient to us? That should be left unto God to decide. This point should be erased. The debate specifically says “Do you agree or disagree with euthanasia or mercy killing?”. What is being advocated is the right of an individual to make a decision, not to have a say or coerce an individual to make the decision to want to die. Although in some cases, involuntary euthanasia has a dark region (grey area).

Coma patients are not ‘living until their natural end’ because modern medicine has developed so we can support them artificially. Perhaps it was God’s will that they die, and we are interefering in this plan by treating them? This point should be erased. The debate specifically says “Do you agree or disagree with euthanasia or mercy killing?”. What is being advocated is the right of an individual to make a decision, not to have a say or coerce an individual to make the decision to want to die. Although in some cases, involuntary euthanasia has a dark region (grey area).

There are strong proponents on both sides of the debate for and against euthanasia. The word euthanasia comes from two Greek words, ôeuö meaning good, and thanatos meaning death. Proponents of euthanasia believe it is everyone’s right to die at a time of their own choosing, and in a manner of their own choosing, when faced with terminal illness rather than suffer through to the bitter end. Opponents argue that euthanasia cannot be a matter of self-determination and personal beliefs, because it is an act that requires two people to make it possible and a complicit society to make it acceptable . They consider euthanasia the equivalent of murder, which is against the law everywhere in civilized society.So, we sould maintain the respect for human life in a secular pluralistic society

The first argument was removed. An appeal to a dictionary or a definition does not make it right or justified in its position. However, it may be speculated or conceived that it is not murder because the premeditated advancement of death by a person of another has been consented to in principle thereby the choice being made is a deliberate one for which one’s right in its very own nature permits the condition to be moral. Secondly for describing euthansia the Germans use the term Sterbehilfe which means “help to die” so while the person and maybe society may be complicit in the “killing of a person” they are accessories and not the actual agents of the killing as they are helping a person to die rather than determining that a person should die, something that would be viewed as murder [[Collins lanugage dictionary]] .

Religious and secular morality decrees that no one has the right to take the life of another human being, A principle stated in the Quaran “[2.28] [Allah] will cause you to die and again bring you to life, then you shall be brought back to Him.” This surah states that if a creator has created an individual than it p.b.u.h will decide whether you live or die and you can not take matters into your own hands.[[ University of Michigan “The Koran” http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/koran/koran-idx?type=simple&q1=life&q2=&q3=&amt=0&size=more%5D%5D . This principle must be safeguarded by law, as moral absolutes of this kind are necessary for a functioning legal system.

While religious morality may be precise on who sets decides when a person dies secular values also recognise if a person is suffering unncessarilly they should be helped to eliminate that suffering. Futhermore a person may well be non religious and resent the imposition of religious or secular values on them, values which they may not belive in. [[ Dr Adams “Personal Story- Dignity in Dying” http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/personal-stories/uk/south-west/exeter/dr-adams-story-33.html Accessed 1.06.2009]] Additionally if this arguement is extended, certain individuals pick and choose biblical scripture (not wiping out the land of a certainr ace) or selectively identify parts as something obselete (i.e. agricultural practices). If an individual does this, the individual believes that there is a morality outside of religious morality above the standard for which the biblical or context in which religion takes place and thus it is moot whether the bible says so or not.

The problem that I have always had with euthanasia is that terminally ill patients may choose to die through feelings of guilt. They may feel guilty about the burden that they are putting on their families and choose to die for this reason alone.

Whatever their reasons, a person should be allowed to do as they see fit. It is their life and they have the right to choose how and when it ends.

The prestigious position of doctors could quite easily be abused if euthanasia were to become legalised. A prime example of this would be the late Dr Harold Shipman, who killed between 215 and 260 elderly women[[ Bonnie Malkin et al ” Harold Shipman in dictionary of biography” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1574271/Harold-Shipman-in-dictionary-of-biography.html Acccessed 01.06.09]] Vulnerable, ill people trust their doctor and if he confidently suggested a course of action, it could be hard to resist. A patient and his family would generally decide in favour of euthanasia according to the details fed to them by their doctor. These details may not even be well founded: diagnoses can be mistaken and new treatment developed which the doctor does not know about. Surely it is wrong to give one or two individuals the right to decide whether a patient should live or die? On the contrary, the majority of doctors would make well-informed, responsible and correct decisions, but for those few like Harold Shipman, they can get away with murder, undetected, for 23 years.[[ Bonnie Malkin et al ” Harold Shipman in dictionary of biography” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1574271/Harold-Shipman-in-dictionary-of-biography.html Acccessed 01.06.09]]

Harold Shipman committed his crimes when euthanasia was illegal, which illustrates that psychopaths can commit crimes whatever the legal situation. Legalising euthanasia would have no effect on the 0.000001% of society who do this sort of thing. In countries where euthanasia is currently legal, such as Switzerland and the Netherlands, strict legal guidelines are in place to ensure that the process does not include such problems. All patients who request euthanasia require the diagnoses of at least two doctors to verify the terminal nature of their illness, and undergo psychological examination by these doctors and often other experts to examine the reasons for their choice. It is not a situation of “Surely it is wrong to give one or two individuals the right to decide whether a patient should live or die?”; it is one of two medical professionals deciding whether the legal parameters allow them to enact the patient’s wishes. [[ Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs”A Guide to the Dutch Termination of life on Request and Assisted Suicide (review procedures) Act – April 2002″ p3 http://www.minbuza.nl/binaries/en-pdf/faq-2008/faq-euthanasie-2008-en.pdf%5D Accessed on 01.06.09]] It is worth noting that, at the moment, doctors can effectively use euthanasia anyway. Firstly, under the “doctrine of double effect”, a doctor is allowed to give a patient, upon their request, a dose of painkilling medication which as a secondary effect speeds up the death of the patient. [[ Alison McIntyre “Doctrine of Double Effect” Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/ Accessed 01.06.09 ]]Secondly, all patients have both the right to refuse treatment, and the ability to make a “living will”, which doctors are compelled to consider if the patient is unable to express their wishes during illness. [[ Direct gov “Government, citizens and rights- How to make a living will-http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Death/Preparation/DG_10029429 01.06.09]]

Ethical safe-guards may not be achieved in the time frame allotted by the affirmative. Oregon physicians, as well as the physicians of Netherland, have been given authority without being in a position to exercise it responsibly. They are expected to inform patients that alternatives are possible without being required to be knowledgeable enough to present those alternatives in a meaningful way, or to consult with someone who is. Meaning that physicians or mental health professionals are advising patients without a complete understanding of end-of-life care available to them, which again goes against the Hippocratic Oath all medical personal must take. They are expected to make decisions about involuntariness without having to see those close to the patient who may be exerting a variety of pressures, from subtle to coercive. They are expected to do all of this without necessarily knowing the patient for longer than 15 days, which is clearly not long enough to fully gain perspective on a person. Since physicians cannot be held responsible for wrongful deaths if they have acted in good faith, substandard medical practice is encouraged, physicians are protected from the con-sequences, and patients are left unprotected while believing they have acquired a new right, and ultimately defeats the purpose of legalizing PAS. [[http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/54071?pageNumber=5]]

We believe this Argument and the rebuttal for the proposition’s “Ethical Safeguards” argument can be clubbed together, and they have both been responded to together in “Rebuttal: Ethical Safeguards”

The opposition stands with critics of PAS who have found that once assisted suicide is accepted as an available option for competent terminally ill adults, it may be permitted for ever-larger groups of persons, including the non-terminally ill, those whose quality of life is perceived to be diminished by a physical disability, persons whose pain is emotional instead of physical, and so forth. Critics point to the fact that permitting euthanasia and assisted suicide, as is done in the Netherlands, does not prevent violation of procedures (e.g., failure to report) which occurs frequently in the medical profession, or abuse (e.g., involuntary euthanasia). It is further contended by the opposition that adequate safeguards are not possible. For example, requiring written requests to be repeated over a period of time, such as 15 days, and witnessed by two unrelated witnesses while simultaneously involving at least two physicians AND a psychiatrist’s or psychologist’s examination is unrealistic. Persons at the end of their lives typically have neither the energy nor the ability to meet such conditions. In addition, the option of assisted suicide for mentally competent, terminally ill people could give rise to a new cultural norm of an obligation to speed up the dying process and subtly or not-so-subtly influence end-of-life decisions of all sorts. Which ultimately costs the patient one of the three inalienable rights, the pursuit of Life. [[http://www.apa.org/pi/eol/arguments.html]]

1) Many people who choose PAS and are not terminally ill have a physical injury or disease attached to their emotional pain. For instance, Daniel James [[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4969423.ece]] was paralyzed from a rugby accident and Chantal Sebire [[http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL1918252520080319]] whom had a swollen tumor in her sinuses that made her face severely disfigured. These people felt like prisoners to their own existence, their quality of life was in fact diminished not “perceived”. We believe no person or government has a right to keep these people entangled in a web of suffering. We recognize that people can continue their lives even in dire situations, but we believe the government should not force them to continue a life of suffering. 2) The opposition says that a “violation of procedures” can occur, such as a failure to report. Unfortunately we do not live in a world where the medical practice can be absolutely infallible. This is more an argument against any sort of medical procedure, life saving or life ending because these problems are not unique to any medical procedure, whether it be perceived as simple or complex . Involuntary euthanasia is not a problem with our safeguards and able and competent doctors in place. Any doctor that would commit involuntary euthanasia with any form of consent from their patient would do so even without a legal PAS system because they have no regard for ethics. 3) Firstly, it seems the opposition is unclear as to why they object to the conditions that need to be fulfilled; because they are not stringent enough or because they are too stringent to be fulfilled by people who wish to exercise this right? We are not exactly sure how our safeguards can be deemed “not possible” and “unrealistic” when they are the same safeguards put in place in the state of Oregon, which we have already stated in our opening arguments.[[http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/127.html]] This is not a chimerical proposition as the opposition has dismissed it as but in fact an actual and real life working system that has been around for 11 years. [[http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2008/09/washington_states_assistedsuic.html]] This system, under which in fact the right to physician assisted suicide has been exercised by hundreds of patients since the law was passed in Oregon. [[http://www.wrd.state.or.us/DHS/ph/pas/docs/year8.pdf]] 4) Rights do not demand to be exercised. We support the inalienable pursuit of Life but we do not support force-feeding life to citizens whom declare that they no longer want to participate in this pursuit for the ethically justifiable reasons stated in our case. We also grant citizen’s freedom of speech but does that mean they we should ban silence? Where governments allow dissent, it would be ludicrous to demand that all citizens must dissent in order to exercise their right. Instead, any theory of rights must protect the exercising of rights as well as the citizen’s choice to not participate, to not exercise their right. The right to life has to be forfeited at some point, and we support the right for our citizens to choose when they want to forfeit it. We see this in the status quo already – governments have ceased to consider suicide a crime. Why should assisted suicide for terminally ill patients be any different?

A patient may accurately judge their current quality of life to be unacceptable, but adequate care would always increase their quality of life to the point where they would reconsider. In addition, there is also fear that accepting such thoughts as legitimate, rather than simply understandable, could comfort an ideology that considers some lives as being ‘not worth living’, even if the person living this life sees value in it. PAS limits the view of the patient to a mere biological mass. Palliative care providers emphasize compassion, and the will to care for the whole human being. The importance of caring for the whole individual rather than for an organ is underlined, as is the importance of interactions between psychological and physical suffering. For both PAS and palliative care, the worst evil is a poor quality of life. For palliative care providers, however, the worst evil is a poor quality of life that is an obstacle to valuing the time that is left, rather than seeking to destroy the natural life-cycle. [[http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/54071?pageNumber=5]]

1) Legalizing physician assisted suicide does not mean that it will be forced on all suffering patients. The proposition strongly feels about the freedom of choice, but the opposition would like to eliminate options and funnel suffering people down a path they feel is the right one. 2) The only ideology that this supports is that a citizen’s life and its value is actually in the hands of and defined by citizens instead of some separate entity. We don’t see any sort of logical connection with this slippery slope that they would like us to ride down. 3) We are not advocating an end to palliative care; we believe both systems can co-exist. What we recognize is that there are some huge pitfalls in palliative care (See: “Discrimination in Palliative Care and how PAS can end it” argument) and that PAS can fill these ethically and efficiently. Stating why palliative care may be a good thing doesn’t address why a PAS should not also be a viable option for patients. 4) We don’t believe that anything that is “natural” is always inherently good and anything that is unnatural is inherently bad, as it seems the opposition believes. If we are to agree with this line of argumentation then any sort of medication, treatment and surgery, such as chemotherapy, that can save lives should not be exist either because they also destroy this “natural life-cycle” that our opposition has defined for all of humanity. We don’t believe that they are as omniscient as they seem to think and feel that they are trespassing into very dangerous territory when they attempt to define just how people should die, and force conformation to that definition.

I really like this article as it gives the pros and cons of mercy killing. I will be referencing this article for a school paper I’m writing .

Who is the author?

Yes. Because It can Save Lives & Preserve the Dignified Orderb of International Health Among Others, Especially Our Own Children! My Mother Died of Both TuberCulosis & Liver Cirrhosis In Combination! She Spat Endless Blood & Making a Terrible Mess in My House & Disturbing All Neighbors & Relatives, With All the Expense On My Own Back ALONE! Since I Was Not Yet Married, but Planned To be ….It May Sound Selfish, but I Truly Value the Safety Of Both My Own Health & Of My Own Neighbors! Now Nobody Wants To Catch TB! So I Used An Injection with ****** (I Am Not Allowed to Post This For Security Purposes) To My own Mother, 7 She Then Died A Happy Quiet & Dignified Death! My Neighbors Did Not Like the & Approve the Idea, But I Must Strongly Approve that it Was THe BEST SECURITY MEASUR OF DEFENSE FOR OWN HEALTH`S SAKE! In Order Not to Be CONTAMINATED From the Disease! Since Additionaly * WE LIVED IN A RUARAL PROVINCE & DID NOT HAVE ANY DOCTORS OR HOSPITALS NEARBY AT ALL!

It should be allowed. Everyone has a right to die.

How can we allow a person to suffer immense pain, and agony; to live each bit of his life cursing his fate? Why is it said that they have to suffer it all?????

In this I really disagree because life is one of the best things that God created.He created us to his image and likeness and in this it’s is a wonderful gift from God.We must thank God for this very wonderful and Beutiful Gift that he has given to us…Thank you very much God

you spelt beautiful wrong.

Give me proof that God exists

Ok tell me how can everything can everything come to being without any creator

As we have no right to choose our birth ,so is our death also the matter of obligation?!I believe that depending on the patient’s illness & age, he has the right to choose, life or death?! It’s so personal.Why should he tolerate pain and suffer?! Just to live a few more days or months. So what?!!!

Surely anyone with compassion who has watched the agony of a friend or relative dying in front of them, sometimes over many days or weeks would agree with euthanasia?? After all, it is usually only the difference between a few more mls of morphine!!! We only keep people in a “liveable” state (called palliative care!) with morphine and having watched my own mother trying to die over this past week I have nothing but contempt for people who are insistent it should be God’s will or the person should keep going until the very bitter end. Shame on you! You obviously enjoy watching someone suffer. I would not and never have allow any animal I have owned to suffer this fate.

I take care of my dad who has an end stage type of dementia. He can’t walk. He can’t talk. He can hardly keep his eyes open to see anymore. He might be living with just dementia, bit I’m living in a never-ending nightmare of taking care of someone that doesn’t know who I am. I don’t love this but because someone says euthanasia is illegal, i am living in slavery. Why is it ok for me to end the suffering of a pet bit I have to suffer and let my father suffer. Maybe drugs will ease his pain but is quality of life just living without pain? He can’t do anything meaningful and he doesn’t remember anything he does anyway. This is bullshit, the longer I deal with him, smothering him with a pillow seems more and more tempting. Then you can all complaint about my quality of life as I live rent free with free food in a prison cell that is being paid for with your tax dollars.

My husband and I talked alot about end of life when he was diagbnosed with Frontal Temporal Disease, from a mutation in the gene that resulted in 2 of his syblings dying from ALS. More research indicated that there had been 7 generations of the diease in his family. As we prepared our legal and financial documents and our living wills, he did not want to be kept alive by any means if he could not care for himself and he never wanted to be in a nursing home. He wanted to die quickly. Unfortunately he was healthy and strong but with a brain that was detiorating very quickly to the point where I could not care for him at home alone or with help since I was physically challenged myself. Most of the time his brain was not focused and communications was non existent; however there were occassions where he would plead for his life to be over. As he lost more of his physical abilities and his ability to walk and talk and his body was forgetting how to swallow you could see the pleading in his eyes. I know this is not how he wants his life to end but there are no options but to sit and watch him wadte away. This is just not right for someone who wants the optopn to end their life!

I think mercy killing should be allowed in my country. Having 2 alzheimer’s patients in hands is not easy. The symptoms are getting worse day by day. No medication can cure alzheimer’s nor at least stop it. We have to spend about 1 million per year for medication, and we dont take them to a nursing home. One is bedridden, cannot talk, and needs to be feeded. Another poops on the stairs or in front of the house. In this case, I would consider euthanasia as a good choice. You know, it does not mean we dont love the two of our family, but they will live in this world and can do nothing to make themselves happy. They cannot even remember themselves or what they just did 5 mins ago! Do you see any good on spending 1 million a year on this incurble disease? Or we pay just to keep them with us?

When there is nothing more to live for, physician assisted suicide should be allowed. What is the big deal? It is as simple as that. It is a solution not a problem.

I just think that they or their close family/close friends should have proof as to prevent any killings that were not wanted by the patient and his or her’s family/close friends.

Whether you agree or disagree, it doesn’t matter. People will take their own life with or without help. Let common sense prevail. We should not judge others people’s right to choose. Do we not allow women to choose to abort or not? It is the same thing. A life is a life, we can’t have it both ways and we must be consistent.

We accept mercy killing for animals but we do not care of the suffering and economic disaster of not allowing people to terminate his/her life

let others die in your hands not with your hands

thanks for the details

In Natures Law nothing is good or evil, it is how we interpret the situation. Euthanasia is just another part of natural occurring which happens to all sort of living beings. Just because we humans interpret it differently doesn’t mean such occurring shouldn’t happen.

Euthanasia (Mercy Killing) Essay

Euthanasia refers to termination of the life of a patient who has no prospect of recovering. The patient might be in great pain and suffering, which calls for termination of his or her life in order to release him or her from pain.

Termination of life qualifies to be euthanasia if a professional or a medical practitioner does it. Moreover, Euthanasia is granted to a patient if he or she does not have a prospect of recovering. In the modern society, Euthanasia is an ethical issue that has raised a controversy between those supporting it and those opposed to it.

Mercy killing takes two major forms, depending on the concept and procedure. Voluntary Euthanasia takes place when the patient requests for the termination of his or her life (Torr 87). Apart from requesting the hospital to terminate his or her life, the patient might as well give consent to the termination of his or her life. In some circumstances, the family and friends of the patient might request the hospital to terminate the life of the patient without necessarily informing the patient. This is termed as involuntary euthanasia.

Involuntary euthanasia takes place when the patient is unable to give consent due to incompetence. Positive euthanasia takes place when the patient is assisted to die through injection of lethal drugs or shooting. Negative or passive euthanasia happens when the patient is left to die without injection of lethal drugs. This takes place when medication is stopped or when the doctor switches off the life-supporting machine.

Euthanasia is highly contested in society since some people claim that God gives life, and only he can take it. Others believe that the sick person should not be left to suffer, but instead relatives and friends must intervene through mercy killing. Proponents suggest that Euthanasia is cost effective implying that the family can save on resources and time by simply helping the patient to die.

Again, Euthanasia is preferred because it saves on the hospital bed and space meaning that curable patients can be admitted (Nitschke 28). Others observe that Euthanasia is the only option if society is to save drugs and fluids, which are usually wasted on patients who will never recover. If Euthanasia is adopted in many countries in the world, doctors will have adequate time to attend to curable diseases and conditions.

Families can as well save on the little resources instead of wasting them on the sick who will never recover. Apart from the issue of cost effectiveness, euthanasia is preferred in the western countries because it is the honorable exit from pain, suffering, and possible humiliation. Euthanasia is considered the only way that one can die with some honor. Based on this argument, we should look at life beyond more existence and consider its quality. When life becomes useless, it should be terminated.

Supporters of euthanasia observe that the principle of individual freedom should be upheld even in matters related to health. An individual should be allowed to choose between life and death. If an individual finds out that his or her life is meaningless, then he or she has the right to terminate it.

Philosophers have also contributed to the topic by noting that the physically fit have a moral obligation of not allowing the sick to suffer if they can help in ending pain. The healthy individuals should use all available means to save those suffering even if this help means employing euthanasia.

Although a number of reasons have been given to justify euthanasia, it should not be legalized because of the sanctity of life. Human life has an intrinsic value and it must be respected at all conditions. Nothing should be done to interfere with human life. If euthanasia is legalized, people will lose respect for human life.

Euthanasia amounts to violation of professional ethics. Medical practitioners are trained in healing and protecting life. In this case, they are not supposed to destroy life. Hippocratic Oath requires that medical doctors must never use their knowledge against human life. They should always support it even if conditions are unbearable. Medicine is not an actual science. In this regard, there could be a possibility of error in medical diagnosis.

A mistake in medical diagnosis causes serious problems because euthanasia does not give the patient a chance to correct the error (Mannes 16). In some parts of the world, such as India and Africa, people believe that miracles might happen, and the patient might be healed. Some individuals argue that sometimes, the condition of the patient might be declared incurable, but after some time the patient is healed miraculously. In other words, we should always hold our patience as we wait for miracles.

Only God gives life and he should be the one taking it. No other person should end it. As human beings, we should always be optimistic for a cure. A cure might be discovered tomorrow because what is incurable today can be cured tomorrow. It will be painful to learn that an individual was assisted to die yet a cure was on the way. Although people have individual freedoms and rights, no person has the right over his or her life.

An individual with friends and family members cannot claim to have the absolute right over his or her life. Our friends and family members are also stakeholders in our lives, and they have a right over our decisions. In some communities, such as African communities, it will be better having a patient in any condition rather than having a dead person. Family members will prefer having a sick person in the house as opposed to having memories of the beloved one (Rachels 56).

The debate on euthanasia is importunate since no group is willing to accept the views of the opposing group. In conclusion, euthanasia is based on two issues, one of them being individual right and the other one is the avoidance of pain and suffering. From a personal standpoint, euthanasia should not be legalized because it is unethical. In most countries of the west, euthanasia is legal implying that it is exercised without restrictions.

Life should always be respected, and any attempt to terminate it should be resisted. As argued by some opponents of euthanasia, a cure might be discovered in the future. Moreover, a miracle might happen along the way since many people have been cured miraculously. For medical practitioners, their role is to protect life but not to terminate it. Therefore, euthanasia should never be allowed in hospitals. Those found discussing it should be prosecuted in the court of law. Allowing euthanasia in society will be disrespecting human life.

Works Cited

Mannes, Marya. “Euthanasia vs. the Right to Life.” Baylor Law Review 27.69 (1975): 14-26. Print.

Nitschke, Philip. The Peaceful Pill Handbook . New York: Exit International Press, 2006. Print.

Rachels, James. The end of life: Euthanasia and Morality . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Torr, James. Euthanasia: opposing viewpoints . San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000. Print.

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Good Euthanasia Mercy Killing Or Murder Argumentative Essay Example

Type of paper: Argumentative Essay

Topic: Law , Crime , Life , Death , Nursing , Euthanasia , Religion , Medicine

Words: 3750

Published: 02/20/2020

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Many people believe that we now live in a world where we can make decisions – women are allowed to choose if and when they want to get pregnant so they take pills to ensure they have their choice. However just like with birth control, there is a lot of debate on euthanasia. Many people are of the opinion that euthanasia should not be allowed. Euthanasia is the process of allowing someone dies willingly and has being mercy killing by many. Unfortunately it is the killing that gets many people riled up as they are of the opinion that lives should not under any circumstances be taken. I am one of those people who agree with those who claim that there is nothing merciful about the taking of people’s lives and I will show in the pages below the problems with euthanasia. Many people have wondered if people on the brink of death can still make a choice and choose death and watch such a choice be acted upon. People have argued that they should be allowed to die in dignity as many of the people who go through with euthanasia usually have some debilitating and life threatening illness that they may think they have no cure over. They feel that allowing them to live in pain and agony for maybe six more months before they die is not life at all but greed by the ones they may be leaving behind who do not want to say goodbye. Proponents of euthanasia believe that it is immoral to force people to keep on living in suffering and pain when they would rather die with dignity. These proponents claim that since suicide is not yet considered a crime that euthanasia should not be as well. But there are many other proponents who are against the idea of euthanasia as they see it as murder. The religious groups believe that life in itself was given by God and only God can take it. There are also legal proponents who believe that euthanasia should not be allowed as they believe this leads people to take the lives of those who would otherwise have wanted to live.

The Legal Position

In most countries euthanasia is considered illegal although that has not stopped some doctors from practicing it still. In a country like the United Kingdom it is considered murder to practice euthanasia and as such it is illegal and culprits are liable to spend up to fourteen years behind bars. This does not change even if the doctor or medical practitioner was acting on the orders of the patient. The 1961 Suicide Act takes it a step further in the UK and stipulates that people who assist, counsel or aid someone in the taking of their lives is also liable to fourteen years imprisonment. The authorities however also decide the circumstances regarding to the person’s death when they are prosecuting cases on euthanasia. Many other countries have similar laws with regards euthanasia even though it may seem like the tide is turning as recent surveys have shown that up to 80% of the public believe that a terminally ill person should be allowed the decency to die with the doctor’s help. While euthanasia has picked up many titles along the way the end result is always death - whether it is active or passive euthanasia. As I have demonstrated above, different countries have different laws regarding euthanasia. The law sees doctors that practice passive euthanasia as different from those doctors who will abandon a patient to die. Although the law states that any euthanasia that occurs without the consent of the patient should be treated as a criminal offense, which is to say that the patient was not pressured into arriving at that decision. This is one of the biggest issues I have with euthanasia. If it were to be made legal, it will not be administered for the healthy but rather the weak and terminally ill. How easy will it be to convince people in this state that they are better off dying so that their loved ones may have closure? There are many people that have been given a very grim medical report who have gone on to achieve great things because they did not give up. The people who make it out alive from these kind of illnesses may be few and far between but if euthanasia kills a person that would otherwise have wanted to live out their lives, no matter how short that period of time is.

Ethical Issues

Euthanasia will always be compared against the religious, moral and ethical backdrop of the society. Most democratic countries accept the right to choose as a civil right. If this is the case, an issue like euthanasia has to be made by the individual itself and many of these people that have chosen euthanasia will not have made this choice if they were to make it by themselves. They would have preferred to go on living – no matter how short that life may be. Most religions are also against the taking of one’s life and euthanasia will always be seen as just that. Many religions that worship a supreme God believe that life was given to us by him and he alone can take that life. they claim that if you had no input in how or when your birth would be then you should not determine when your death would be. In taking your life or giving consent for one’s life to be taken from them is equal to that person in question taking the role of God upon themselves? It is clear that not everybody will believe in a God who gives life and watches over the life, people cannot deny the fact that everybody is unique with unique DNA and a life that cannot be copied. If indeed our lives are as precious as have been mentioned above, then why do we take these same lives. It therefore becomes the job of the society to stop people from short changing themselves through the taking of their lives.

Religion and Death

Death plays a very important role in the many different religions in the world and while these different religions treat death differently, most of them are adverse to the idea of euthanasia. The Christian religion believe that it is God who gives life and He too should be the one who takes life and that the so called mercy killing is actually murder and should be stopped. One of the most active advocates against euthanasia is the Roman Catholic Church who actually forbids it. They teach that people attached to the ailing should instead take care of them and nurture them in their dying days as opposed to finding a quick fix solution to their problem. Most religions that have a supreme God stick to His command when He says that we must not kill. In as much as people may look at euthanasia as ‘letting the patient die with dignity’ the bible has called this process death and frowns at it. Religion also sees humans as being special because they were created by God. If mankind is indeed special then they must be preserved by all means and not trivialized through the practice of euthanasia. While Christianity is adamant in its opinion that euthanasia should not be allowed, the eastern religions take on a different approach. These religions see death as being set free from mortal life. However they too are against harming other people and euthanasia falls into the second category. While religions like Hinduism and Buddhism see death as a process of the life cycle, shortening that life does interfere with this divine cycle and is therefore frowned upon. Ending one’s life before it naturally ends also interferes with ultimate liberation and what the said person will become in the afterlife. Many other religions have different reasons as to why they are against this sort of life ending procedure and as a result euthanasia has been a heavily debated topic. This doesn’t look like it will end any time soon.

The Hospice as an Alternative

Living with the terminally or seriously ill is a huge burden on the sick person and the caregiver. This pressure has seen to the rise of hospices being prepared for people who have a very short time to live where they are cared for and given palliative care. These centres do not try to prolong the life or even shorten it but instead they try to make it as stress free as possible for all the parties involved. The staffs at these centres help to enhance the quality of life of these people who can see and tell that they are not alone in their suffering but that there are many other people with similar or worse cases than theirs. These hospices help to ease the burden on the loved ones who had taken up the role of caretakers. It also reduces the resentment felt by the terminally ill patient towards their loved ones.

Personal Experience

For many years my grandmother has been suffering from depression and this depression began to make her physically ill. It got to a point where she had to survive on anti-depressants and because she hated how they made her feel she would deliberately not take them at times. Unfortunately for her situation when she was not taking her medications, she acted violent. During her last days she became increasingly ill and emancipated and this also became a burden on her children as well. Many times she had family watch her as the depression and many other illnesses that came about as a result. Staying at home and being looked after became hard on my mother because she was always a very energetic and busy woman and many of times she wished she was dead. As hard as it was to take care of her we did still do everything in our power till the day she just died normally. We knew that it was eventually going to be a losing battle but we were willing to keep her alive instead of the alternative choice of euthanasia. Whenever people wondered why we were punishing her by keeping her alive, we always said that the last four months of her life may have seen her have 110 bad days but the 10 good days was worth her being alive.

Euthanasia – A Global Issue

The world has become a global village with longevity of life seen as a global reality. This is due to the new and improved research, better medical facilities and healthier alternatives to life. in all this however, globalisation has not been able to stop death from happening and why some people face death and come out victorious, others suffer a long and difficult journey before they eventually die. People are said to be living not just because they are breathing but because of the quality of life they live. There are some illnesses that deprive people of that quality of life that was at one time or the other available to them. The people who say euthanasia should be allowed see euthanasia as a humane thing to do and not as murder (Gerald). Although I do not have data or a survey to back this statement, I do believe that most people would want a pain free death although not everyone will enjoy that benefit. Looking at the above one could almost believe that euthanasia is the right thing to do. In my life I have seen many things that may seem right at the start but halfway through I realise that I have made a grave mistake and then it would be too difficult to retrace my steps. Euthanasia is a touching subject because it has to do with life, it is not like a dress that you buy from the shops and on getting home realise that you don’t like it and you return it for a refund. Life especially that of a loved one should not be treated as a discarded or unwanted cloth. Is there anything like death with dignity or is death just death – a finality of life.

Proponents for Euthanasia

While there are people and organisations and even legislations that have been put up to stop euthanasia, there are those who believe that euthanasia should be allowed to thrive. The proponents of euthanasia believe that it is possible for euthanasia to be controlled and not abused even though it will be hard to have regulations in place that will prevent people from abusing euthanasia. They say it is just like the law and how it affects any crime (Neil 243). There may be laws in place to prevent crimes like fraud or theft or any other crime but still there will also be people that will go ahead and commit those crimes. The problem and the catch though is that no laws and regulations put in place will dissuade wicked people from pressuring vulnerable people to make the choice of death even though they may have wanted to live for a few days more. They however admit that it would be a better situation to create a structure for euthanasia as opposed to making no structure available. People being who they are will practise euthanasia whether it be made legal or not and the best way to minimize abuse would be to put structures in place. They have argued that this is a similar thing to the struggle for abortion. With structures put in place, vulnerable people will be able to be protected through these structures instead of just being unnecessarily pressured to choose euthanasia. How then would a good regulation look like? An effective regulation should take everything into consideration before deciding that euthanasia is the best option. In other words it should not be the first option but rather the last one. There are some parts of the world that have started practising such things on a reasonable scale. - Physician-assisted suicide was legalised in Oregon in 1998 under very severe conditions. For the first three years of its presences only about 2 people a month used euthanasia to end their lives. The process involved things like getting checked by a second physician who must also claim that the patient had less than six months to live and many requests for euthanasia must have been given. - While the Netherlands still considers euthanasia and assisted suicide as crimes, there are times doctors can be exempt from liability of crime. The Criminal Code Article of Netherlands has stipulated that if the patient that has made a voluntary request to die was suffering unendurable pain and is convinced that there is no other viable solution, then the doctor that assists that patient to die will not be liable of crime.

Problems with Euthanasia

There is the fear that euthanasia will be abused if it is allowed. Vulnerable and at risk patients will be pressured by people to end their lives. While I have shown that it is difficult to take care of any ailing person, forcing them to choose death instead of fight for their lives is wickedness. And many of them will be coerced into choosing death. I could give an example of two AIDS sufferers. The first one may have been abandoned as a result of their illness by all they love and hold dear and in a state of isolation choose death to end it all. However there is the other sufferer who is being pressured by present loved ones to end their life while all they may have wanted might have been the chance to spend every waking minute with these same loved ones. Allowing euthanasia will be a chance for it to be abused. People are created free and they enjoy the opportunity to live life free. Illness not only saps one of this freedom of life but it also saps the chance to live free of the loved ones who now have to care for an ill relative and especially when that ailment does not seem to have a silver lining. This total dependence on others leads to feelings of worthlessness as they see their situation depriving the ones they love of the chance to live life free. Some people that find themselves in that position may decide rather to end it all than to have their loved ones hate on them later from depriving them from living their own lives. On-going medical treatment is a very expensive venture and more often than not it affects the financial lives of the loved one who may also be left to pay the bills when the sufferer dies eventually. Many people may stipulate that since the person is going to die anyway that it might be better if the life is shortened instead of prolonging it and in so doing increasing their hospital debt. The lethal medication that is usually administered for euthanasia costs less than $100 and this is much cheaper than the continuing medical treatment of the patient. I believe that many people who choose or persuade others to have euthanasia have never stopped to consider what they would want to happen to them if they were the ones lying by a thread in that hospital bed.

I have heard many stories of people who have been affected in one way or the other by sicknesses that look incurable and how they have at one time or the other considered how much easier it would be for them to end it all. I remember the story of a friend whose mother was dying of cancer and how she one day joked that her son should use an axe and chop her head off. While she said it in jest on one of her better days, that friend did sit to think for a minute how much easier his life would be when his mother would die. While he was never going to get an ax to chop off his mother’s head or even allow her take the euthanasia route, he did admit that her illness was not just hard on her but it was hard on him as well. Dying is so different from child bearing and it does take time and unlike child bearing where there are people on hand to assist you bring in that new life, death happens when you are alone. In that instance he realised that euthanasia went far beyond the issue of morality or legality and was really all about how selfish one was. The issue I have with euthanasia is that it deprives the carers the time they needed to process how they would feel when that person was no longer in their lives. Just like my friend, many people are not ready to die and even though they may moan and groan and even wish death on the sufferer in their care when things get too hard for them, at the end of it all, they want these people to go only when they have fully prepared themselves for that loss. Those who agree with euthanasia will call my friend selfish and maybe he was, but isn’t that what love is about. They will claim that he deprived her going in a dignified manner and instead watch as she lost herself and her will to eat or live or endure insurmountable pain because he wanted to be with his loved one for one more day. They may argue that that person on that bed is no longer the loved one they knew but a caricature of their former selves and they may be right. But in all this I say that there is no telling the amount of pain that a human can bare if that human believes that there are loved ones cheering them on. Only a fool will believe that he will never die but then, everybody that is alive should be allowed to die and not pressured to give up their right to live so that their carers can go on with their lives – that is very selfish. What protects the terminally ill person from the clutches of their wicked family who would rather they die sooner rather than later. Does that man or woman who is been rattled by alheizmers have enough thinking faculty to realise that no one has the power to determine when he should die. There was a time that people saw abortion as a taboo but today the story is different. If the world continues to grow at the rate it is at the moment, I believe that there will come a time when euthanasia just might become law. I hope that if that day ever comes by that the people who wield the power to determine if grandma should die tomorrow should look back and think of all they have gone through and how one day it may be them lying on that bed and waiting for your grandson to give a verdict on your life. I hope that if that day does roll around that you and your grandson will choose life no matter how short it may be.

BBC. “Ethical Problems of Euthanasia.” n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/overview/problems.shtml Campbell, Neil. “A Problem for the Idea of Voluntary Euthanasia.” Journal of Medical Ethics. 25 (1999) : pp 242-244. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. http://jme.bmj.com/content/25/3/242.full.pdf Berger, John. “Hiroshima: Paired Readings of the Reality of War.” n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. http://www.mccc.edu/pdf/esl135/hiroshima.pdf Larue, Gerald. “Euthanasia: A Global Issue.” North American Committee of Humanism. (1999) Web. 11 Nov. 2013. http://www.humanismtoday.org/vol13/larue.html Nickel & Dimed. “On Not Getting by in America.” New York: Metropolitan/ Owl Book, PDF. http://swcta.net/moore/files/2013/03/Nickel-and-Dimed-Barbara-Ehrenreich.pdf

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Persuasive Essay On Mercy Killing

The idea of mercy killing might seem so far away to people who aren’t faced with the issue or who have never even heard of such a thing. So what is mercy killing? According to merriam-webster.com, Mercy killing, also known as Euthanasia, is when someone with an illness or serious injury is killed in order to stop the person’s suffering , but there are too many instances where instead of ending the sick person’s suffering, it ends the person who has to deal with the issue. There are two types of mercy killing. These are killing someone with their consent or taking their lives into your own hands and making the hard decision of death for them. There are many countries who have chosen to legalize this act, but they are under a strict set of …show more content…

A week later Courtney died in the hospital, due to the drug cocktail leaving her mother behind. While this tragic story is very heart touching, one has to look at the facts. Bonnie Litz took on another life knowing her condition, and decided to end that life out of what a lot of people call “mercy.” But is mercy taking someone’s life without his or her approval? In addition to this example, in 2014, Charlotte Fitzmaurice Wise petitioned to a court in London to be able to legally kill her 12-year-old daughter. The daughter, Fitzmaurice, suffered from meningitis and septicaemia and was even born blind. The court granted Wise permission to end Fitzmaurice’s life, even though the girl could not communicate in any form. Therefore, there was no way that she could have told anyone that she wanted her life to end. But the worst part about this case, is how this little girl’s life was taken away from her. It was not short and quick, but instead she lay in bed and starved to death for 14 days before she ever passed on. Cassy Fiano stated in her article, dying from starvation, “ is agonizingly painful,” (Fiano 2014). It causes your organs to shut down and your body to dry out making a person very uncomfortable quickly. This was about the most inhumane thing one could do to a person and no one deserved to die that way. One of the strongest cases to match up with this point is the case of baby Conor who stopped breathing one night in January of 1997. His parents rushed him to

Persuasive Essay On Death With Dignity

I do support Death with Dignity Act, similar to the one in Oregon, to be implemented in other states. Death with Dignity allows a terminally ill patient, who has zero possibility of recovering with any kind medical treatment, to rest in peace at will. These are voluntary unlike Euthanasia. An eligible person, which would be a terminally ill patient in this case, can request the prescription and can choose if and when to take it. The case of Brittany Maynard clearly shows that patients who are sick and whose sufferings cannot be relieved , should have a choice to put an end to the pain and have a peaceful death with near and dear ones by their side. Dying with excruciating pain and suffering, within four walls of hospital with restlessness and

Persuasive Essay On Death Penalty

The death penalty disproportionately targets minorities especially African Americans. In the United States of America there is an unequal and unfair burden against African Americans in the criminal justice system. In 2011, African Americans were only 13.6% of the American population (Rastogi, Johnson, Hoeffel, & Drewery, 2011). However, African Americans in 2011 made up 42% of the total death row population (Snell, 2011). Although a minority of the total population in the United States, African Americans make the majority of inmates on death row facing execution. Furthermore, the death penalty in many states is used as tool that following the racial legacy of Jim Crow laws. Sentences resulting in death are higher in states with a history of lynching (Schweizer 92). States with a history of lynching are predominately found in the Southern United states. The Southern United states has the highest population of death row inmates. In 2009 alone there were 1,630 inmates currently on death row in the South compared to 226 in the North and only 988 in the West (Schweizer 92). In addition, the race of the victim often will determine the sentence. Results from the Baldus Study suggested evidence of racial disparity in the state of Georgia based on the victims race (Schweizer 92). The Baldus study argued African American defendants who committed murdered white individuals had much higher probability of receiving the death penalty. Prosecutors in Georgia pursued a verdict of death in 80% of their cases if the defendant was African American and the victim was white (Schweizer 92). This is purely racial discrimination and prejudice. Finally, “Since 1977, the overwhelming majority (77%) off death row defendants have been executed for killing white victims, even though African Americans make up about half of all homicide victims (Amnesty International).”The race of the both the victim and perpetrator in criminal is irrelevant.

Persuasive Essay On The Right To Die

The right to die has been a topic of many debates. People are either strongly opposed to the act, saying things like “In no situation is suicide the right thing to do,” while others argue the exact opposite. No compromises are made as an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, but this is life or death. The answer cannot be as simple as yes or no. We all go through difficulties in our lives, some even struggle with depression at times, but unlike those who are depressed or going through a rough patch, there are those who are doomed to deal with physical pain the rest of their lives. How could we deprive them the choice of a painless death, when letting them die slowly on a hospital bed is the only other option? Physician assisted suicide for those who are terminally ill should be legalized in America, because physician assisted suicide saves those who are hurting from living the rest of their lives in agony.

Doctor Assisted Suicide Research Paper

Allowing terminally ill, patients facing imminent death and people in excruciating pain the right to end life relieves the suffering and pain they are experiencing. These people with incurable diseases and conditions do not want to live the last days of life in a hospital room in immense pain, attached to tubes and machines that are the difference between life and death. Many people do not understand the perspective from a patient's point of view unless, they are in this situation, in the unbearable pain that makes each day painful. This was the case for Brittany Maynard, a twenty nine year old woman who was diagnosed with glioblastoma. She was told that she only had six months to live because of her terrible tumor, there is no cure for her disease and she new she would die. The best option for her situation seemed to be assisted suicide. Brittany and her husband moved to Oregon, which is one of the few states that has legalized assisted suicide in order to pursue her wish of ending her life. According to Brittany “I've discussed with many experts how I would die from it and it's a terrible, terrible way to die. So being able to choose to go with dignity is less terrifying." Being able to have a choice and dignity does not make patients weak and does not mean that they are giving up, it simply means they do not want to remember life to be painful and have their family members have this as their last

Voluntary Euthanasia In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Mercy killing is wrong and inhumane because you should not be allowed to choose someone else's fate. Mercy killing is an unethical procedure. Mercy killing is when a person has a loved one euthanized to put them out of potential misery. Ending someone’s life without their consent is called murder and this should not be legalized.

The Case Of Physician Assisted Suicide

Patient autonomy is often the focus of the death with dignity debate. The rights of the patient should be respected. Losing control is a fear held by many patients suffering from either degenerative or terminal illness. Some hold the position that life is unexpected, and fate is out of human control. Though nature is unpredictable and "deadly tornadoes and hurricanes are painful reminders" of that loss of control (Friend, 2011, p. 114), the same does not have to be true for those with illnesses. This fear is often shown through the dependency on others. Without the law, it is very common for patients to take their own life in order to gain a sense of control. Justice Lynn Smith of Canada indicated that, according to the case of a woman seeking the right to assisted suicide, "[the plaintiff 's] decreased lifespan would occur if she concludes the she needs to take her own

Persuasive Essay On The Death Penalty

The death penalty, by definition, is the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime. Each state has their own determinates of why someone would be given the death penalty, for example, in Missouri, it is first degree murder, but for Alabama it is intentional murder with 18 aggravating factors.

Lennie In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Mercy killing isn’t wrong because if the person is suffering in pain and no longer wants to live they should be able to decide whether or not want to live the rest of their life in pain or end it. Mercy killing also known as enthusia and it is a quick, painless way of killing a person or animal that is very sick and can’t get better or terminally ill. The decision should be based on the person’s rights and religious beliefs and the doctors religious beliefs. In some religions it is seen as a sin to be commit suicide or to assist in helping someone commit suicide and you would go to

Comparison Of John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

A woman named Brittany Maynard chose to end her life after being diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor in the article “Death With Dignity Advocate Brittany Maynard Dies in Oregon”. “Brittany chose to make a well thought out and informed choice to Die With Dignity in the face of such a terrible, painful, and incurable illness” (NBC News) making her case is a textbook example of a mercy killing. Maynard was suffering from a serious disease that was not curable, and chose to end her own life out of her own free will. In Of Mice and Men Lennie may have had a mental disorder, but he was still able to function doing daily tasks, his disability had the potential to get better and did not cause him pain. In another article, “Mercy killing, suicide: ‘Social challenges’ to be faces as U.S. ages”, a man named John Wise killed his wife in what was thought to be “part of a “death pact” promise to prevent her from suffering” (Lynch, 1). John Wise and his wife came to an agreement to end her life, she was suffering from an incurable illness and choose to have her life ended by someone she loved. Lennie was not given the choice to end his life like Brittany Maynard had, and had not priorly agreed with George on ending his life like John Wise. Lennie’s death cannot be a mercy kill because he did not get the chance to reflect on

Euthanasia Or Assisted Suicide Summary

Euthanasia or assisted suicide is the practice of intentionally ending someone’s life to alleviate his or her pain. The article “Terminally Ill Brittany Maynard Takes Her Own Life Under Oregon Law” explains the case of a woman with terminal brain cancer who decided to change of state to obtain medical assistance to end her life. In the United States, there are just few states that are not against physician aid with dying (PAD), which is the reason why the Maynard had to relocate from California to Oregon. It is important to emphasize that this case occurred in 2014, when euthanasia was still illegal in the state of California. Many in the country criticized Maynard’s decision; this indicates that choosing when and how to die, regardless of

The Medical And Legal Fields About Assisted Suicide

Every capable human being is granted the right of determining the fashion in which to live their life. This fundamental right should naturally be extended towards individuals deteriorating at the hands of their terminal conditions and allow them control over the timing and manner of death they wish to face. It is an essential human prerogative to have management over one’s personal welfare. As a matter of fact, it is crucial towards the means of sustaining and upholding our human rights; our rights to determine our own direction, state of being, and eventual fate. If autonomy is a highly valued principle, it is logical that patients should have the right to participate in all end-of-life decisions (Fraser 16). A democratic society that honors justice and liberty should acknowledge and permit divergent opinions and allow dying people a degree of freedom in when and how it comes to an end (Fraser 18). The lives of terminally ill patients are recurrently demoted to perpetual hospital visits and countless hours of treatments and surgeries. According to Oregon’s Department of Human Resources, 79% of persons who chose physician-assisted suicide did not wait until they were bedridden to take their lethal medication, thus providing further evidence that controlling the manner and time of death were important issues to these patients (Department). How to Die in Oregon is a documentary that examines real life reverberations

Mercy Killing In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

What is mercy? Mercy is: kindness or help given to people who are in a very bad or desperate situation. Mercy killing is a little different than that though. Mercy killing is: the act of putting to death painlessly or allowing to die. The word “mercy killing” actually came from the word euthanasia in the 1640’s, but many people today call it mercy killing. Mercy killing is much like putting a dog down because it is too old and already in pain. In John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, there are a couple times mercy killing takes place throughout the entire book.

Euthanasia In Australia

Euthanasia has been around for many generations. However it has often been questioned whether or not a patient whom has no hope of recovery has the right to decide when and how to end their life. Euthanasia is often defined as ‘the act of deliberately ending a person’s life to relieve suffering’ (NHS choices , 2014). Euthanasia is also described as Mercy killing, however Mercy killing is occasionally defined as allowing someone to die, by withholding extreme medical measures (Dictionary.com, 2015 ). Euthanasia is a very complex issue and has been a controversial issue for a long time, dating back to the time when ancient romans and Greeks supported euthanasia and its practice after the Hippocratic

Assisted Suicide Case Study

The recent case of 29-year-old American woman Brittany Maynard who is suffering from stage 4-brain cancer has made news after she publicised her choice to purse death with dignity. Her case has been so widespread due to her young age and confidence in her decision to end her life. Maynard is working in her last few months to publicise every humans right to chose when they die, and to avoid suffering. “I believe this is a healthcare right and choice that should be available to all terminally ill Americans,” she stated. Maynard moved to Oregon, one of only 5 states in America to have ‘Death with Dignity’ laws, in order to fulfil her

The death penalty is a prosecute that is used to kill criminals that have committed crimes that are so bad they should not be left alive. The idea of putting another human to death is hard to completely fathom. The physical mechanics involved in the act of execution are easy to grasp, but the emotions involved in carrying out a death sentence on another person, regardless of how much they deserve it, is beyond my understanding. Knowing that it must be painful, dehumanizing, and sickening. The Eight Amendment says” Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” (Constitutions). And for the article Changing Views on\\e rate has gone down at a steady from the 1990 to now and that they death penalty is sometimes necessary, and it is our responsibility as a society to see that it is done.

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Argumentative Essay On Mercy Killing

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Show More Register to read the introduction… We are being inhumane to force people to continue suffering in this way (Newman, 1996). Choosing for a more painless death comes a lot easier for patients along with family who witness the pain of their loved is enduring with all the medications and treatments (which tend to cause severe side effects). I believe that is justified. Especially knowing that the chances of survival are very slim for the patient . Supports of the mercy killing ask whether it is rational or not to keep a terminally ill patient who’s hopes of survival are slim and alive on a support system when our medical infrastructure is under immense pressure (Naik, 2011). Supporters also ask why mercy killing is not legalized when murder in defense is taken into consideration by law (Naik, 2011). 1. The Patient’s right to self-determination. Patient empowerment has been a trend for more than twenty-five years. “it’s my life, my pain. Why can’t I get the treatment I want?” (Newman, 1996). Severely ill patients will be able to die with dignity and honor rather than waiting for their sickness to consume every part of them. Forbidding someone who is terminally ill and is suffer gives that patient a feeling of being trapped in agony and their

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Persuasive Essay On Mercy Killing

What a person can do if he finds himself at a point where the pain and suffering has led him to make a simple choice between an unbearable life and a peaceful death, and life seems more like an undignified liability rather than a blessing? Euthanasia, often termed as Mercy Killing, may be one of the available moral options at that moment, but is it legally justified? This paper shall explore the answer to this question, by shedding light on the moral dilemma, that whether it is justified to end the life of a terminally ill patient suffering from severe pain and under what conditions can this merciful act of killing could be justified, if at all. Euthanasia is a term which refers to ‘an intentional termination of life by another, at the explicit request of the person who wishes to die, in order to relieve them of their suffering.’ Usually, a person undergoes euthanasia in situations where he has either an incurable condition or a …show more content…

The world has tremendously evolved and continues evolving every day, and with changing social realities, the rights and obligations of people have also evolved. Rights, which were once forbidden and considered taboo, like abortion or same-sex marriages, are now recognized and accepted. In this scenario, could a right to death be accepted and legalized universally? Let us assume why not, as it is a matter of personal liberty, especially when it is voluntary or provided for by the patient in the living will; so, why state should interfere and disturb the enjoyment of this right, since an individual has a right and control over his own

Persuasive Essay On Death With Dignity Act

Imagine you have difficulty waking up, trying to fight the constant sensation of drowsiness with the little life you have left. When you wake, you struggle through the haze of confusion to finally realize that you are in the same monochromatic, secluded room you’ve been in for the past two months or possibly two years. No family in sight. No pets. No fireplace awaiting you.

14th Amendment Euthanasia

The right to die is not embedded in the Constitution. Based on the first and fourteenth amendments euthanasia is not invested in the Constitution. The first amendment expresses freedom of religion. The fourteenth amendment states you can’t deprive anyone from life.

Persuasive Essay On Assisted Suicide

Assisted Suicided Every 16.2 minutes, there are people in the world that take their own life by killing themselves.(Purity, 9) There are are over 40,000 people every year that commit suicide.(Purity, 10) Suicide is the leading cause of death for those of the age of 15-24 years old.(Purity, 13) However, coming up in the media through the last 20 years has been the idea of ending your life by assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is the practice of ending someone 's life.(Newton, 7) A terminal illness is when you have a disease that will end your life within the near future.

A Rhetorical Analysis Of Euthanasia By Philippa Foot

Another issue with legalizing euthanasia would be that society would be too easily convinced to support it. "It would be hard to devise procedures that would protect people from being persuaded into giving their consent." (Foot, p. 112) There is no possible way to know if a person is giving their consent because they actually want to or maybe because they were persuaded to do

Persuasive Essay On Physician Assisted Suicide

In the defense of Physician Assisted Suicide, a wide publicly talked about topic, it should be a choice every terminally ill patient receives. Physician Assisted suicide is when a patient is terminally ill and has no chances of recovering. The patient themselves can make the decision, with the help from their physician, to get lethally injected and end their life reducing and ending the pain. In America each state has a little over 3,000 patients that are terminally ill contact an advocacy group known as the Compassion and Choices to try to reduce end-of- life suffering and perhaps hasten their death. Physician Assisted Suicide shouldn’t be looked at as suicide, but as ending the pain and suffering from an individual whose life is going to be taken away anyway.

Ethical Essay: The Role Of Euthanasia In Medicine

The word “euthanize” means to bring about a person’s death to relieve them from serious distress. The topic of euthanasia in medicine has evolved since intensive care was first instituted. Before the 1950’s, a simple model was used to determine when someone was dead: the individual was dead when his or her heart stopped beating. In the modern light, the answer to this question isn’t as clear. With advancements in organ transplantation and other medical technologies, the stopping of a beating heart is no longer a definite death sentence.

You Don T Know Jack Movie Analysis

There are real case incidents in which a 14 year old girl suffering from terminal cystic fibrosis is asking her country’s president for permission to end her life. She had self shot a video in which she says “I am tired of living this disease and she can authorize an injection through which I can sleep forever”. The girl's video has sparked a broader conversation about whether euthanasia should be legalized in the largely Catholic nation. According to me we should let euthanasia be legal as there is no significance in keeping them alive against their wish as we don’t know how much they are suffering. Another incident is where the woman moved to Oregon where euthanasia is legal to take advantage of Oregon’s death with Dignity Law.

Argumentative Essay Pro And Euthanasia

Imagine having to endure so much pain and suffering for a majority of your life that you would just want it all to end. Well, there is a way one can stop their own pain and suffering and it is called euthanasia. Euthanasia is the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease. The act may only be done solely to those diagnosed with terminal illnesses such as cancer, aids, and heart disease. Many people agree with the idea of euthanasia as it can help those who are suffering be stripped of all the pain they are enduring.

Argumentative Essay On Right To Die

The pros to having the right to die law are that patients are able to end their suffering and pain. Some patients have illnesses that are so painful that the only way to get rid of the pain is to end their own life. The patient is able to die in dignity because they don’t have to worry about losing their mental and physical capacities. The patient can arrange to say goodbye to their love ones and their financial burden is reduced. Patients are able to donate their organs to other patients if they were planned ahead of time.

Persuasive Essay On Euthanasia

Euthanasia, also known as assisted suicide, is the act of permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured patients. This is never suggested by the caretaker rather than requested by the patient or their family. Few areas such as the Netherlands have already legalized this practice. This debate, as split as a fork in the road, is over whether or not this approach should be legalized worldwide on stances regarding religion, ethics, and self choice.     I see this as being extremely unethical on both religious and social morality levels.

The Pros And Cons Of Active Euthanasia?

Before discuss the human right to die with dignity, first to discuss the human right to die. Indeed, there are not a specific declaration of right to die, right to die is an extent of the right to life. The right to life is not a right simply to exist and is a right to life with a minimum quality and value. Death is the opposite of life, but the process of death is part of

Everyone has the right to choose to live or die. Death is part of life that can 't be avoided. This is a natural phenomenon in the process of life is birth, aging, illness and death. Euthanasia, in some words "Mercy Killing or Physician assisted Suicide. " Euthanasia is to help patients who despair and cannot be cured to die peacefully and to have free from suffering.

Argumentative Essay: The Right To Die

The Right to Die has been taking effect in many states and is rapidly spreading around the world. Patients who have life threatening conditions usually choose to die quickly with the help of their physicians. Many people question this right because of its inhumane authority. Euthanasia or assisted suicide are done by physicians to end the lives of their patients only in Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana, New Mexico and soon California that have the Right to Die so that patients don’t have to live with depression, cancer and immobility would rather die quick in peace.

Persuasive Speech On Euthanasia

If people have the right to live, then do they have the right to die? Is it okay to end someone’s life in order to end his/her pain and suffering? These are two of the biggest questions nowadays and I am here to take my stand on this issue. People are easily confused with this due to the fact that on one hand, we know that it is wrong to take a person’s life. On the other hand, it is difficult to see them suffering and in pain for a longer period of time.

Pros And Cons Of Euthanasia

THE EUTHANASIA CONTROVERSY Summary Euthanasia has constantly been a heated debate amongst commentators, such as the likes of legal academics, medical practitioners and legislators for many years. Hence, the task of this essay is to discuss the different faces minted on both sides of the coin – should physicians and/or loved ones have the right to participate in active euthanasia? In order to do so, the essay will need to explore the arguments for and against legalizing euthanasia, specifically active euthanasia and subsequently provide a stand on whether or not it should be an accepted practice.

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Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls

The case for making journalism free—at least during the 2024 election

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How many times has it happened? You’re on your computer, searching for a particular article, a hard-to-find fact, or a story you vaguely remember, and just when you seem to have discovered the exact right thing, a paywall descends. “$1 for Six Months.” “Save 40% on Year 1.” “Here’s Your Premium Digital Offer.” “Already a subscriber?” Hmm, no.

Now you’re faced with that old dilemma: to pay or not to pay. (Yes, you may face this very dilemma reading this story in The Atlantic .) And it’s not even that simple. It’s a monthly or yearly subscription—“Cancel at any time.” Is this article or story or fact important enough for you to pay?

Or do you tell yourself—as the overwhelming number of people do—that you’ll just keep searching and see if you can find it somewhere else for free?

According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, more than 75 percent of America’s leading newspapers, magazines, and journals are behind online paywalls. And how do American news consumers react to that? Almost 80 percent of Americans steer around those paywalls and seek out a free option.

Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else. Simply put, paywalls get in the way of informing the public, which is the mission of journalism. And they get in the way of the public being informed, which is the foundation  of democracy. It is a terrible time for the press to be failing at reaching people, during an election in which democracy is on the line. There’s a simple, temporary solution: Publications should suspend their paywalls for all 2024 election coverage and all information that is beneficial to voters. Democracy does not die in darkness—it dies behind paywalls.

The problem is not just that professionally produced news is behind a wall; the problem is that paywalls increase the proportion of free and easily available stories that are actually filled with misinformation and disinformation. Way back in 1995 (think America Online), the UCLA professor Eugene Volokh predicted that the rise of “cheap speech”—free internet content—would not only democratize mass media by allowing new voices, but also increase the proliferation of misinformation and conspiracy theories, which would then destabilize mass media.

Paul Barrett, the deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and one of the premier scholars on mis- and disinformation, told me he knows of no research on the relationship between paywalls and misinformation. “But it stands to reason,” he said, “that if people seeking news are blocked by the paywalls that are increasingly common on serious professional journalism websites, many of those people are going to turn to less reliable sites where they’re more likely to encounter mis- and disinformation.”

In the pre-internet days, information wasn’t free—it just felt that way. Newsstands were everywhere, and you could buy a paper for a quarter. But that paper wasn’t just for you: After you read it at the coffee shop or on the train, you left it there for the next guy. The same was true for magazines. When I was the editor of Time , the publisher estimated that the “pass-along rate” of every issue was 10 to 15—that is, each magazine we sent out was read not only by the subscriber, but by 10 to 15 other people. In 1992, daily newspapers claimed a combined circulation of some 60 million; by 2022, while the nation had grown, that figure had fallen to 21 million. People want information to be free—and instantly available on their phone.

Barrett is aware that news organizations need revenue, and that almost a third of all U.S. newspapers have stopped publishing over the previous two decades. “It’s understandable that traditional news-gathering businesses are desperate for subscription revenue,” he told me, “but they may be inadvertently boosting the fortunes of fake news operations motivated by an appetite for clicks or an ideological agenda—or a combination of the two.”

Digital-news consumers can be divided into three categories: a small, elite group that pays hundreds to thousands of dollars a year for high-end subscriptions; a slightly larger group of people with one to three news subscriptions; and the roughly 80 percent of Americans who will not or cannot pay for information. Some significant percentage of this latter category are what scholars call “passive” news consumers—people who do not seek out information, but wait for it to come to them, whether from their social feeds, from friends, or from a TV in an airport. Putting reliable information behind paywalls increases the likelihood that passive news consumers will receive bad information.

In the short history of social media, the paywall was an early hurdle to getting good information; now there are newer and more perilous problems. The Wall Street Journal instituted a “hard paywall” in 1996. The Financial Times formally launched one in 2002. Other publications experimented with them, including The New York Times , which established its subscription plan and paywall in 2011. In 2000, I was the editor of Time.com, Time magazine’s website, when these experiments were going on. The axiom then was that “must have” publications like The Wall Street Journal could get away with charging for content, while “nice to have” publications like Time could not. Journalists were told that “information wants to be free.” But the truth was simpler: People wanted free information, and we gave it to them. And they got used to it.

Of course, publications need to cover their costs, and journalists need to be paid. Traditionally, publications had three lines of revenue: subscriptions, advertising, and newsstand sales. Newsstand sales have mostly disappeared. The internet should have been a virtual newsstand, but buying individual issues or articles is almost impossible. The failure to institute a frictionless mechanism for micropayments to purchase news was one of the greatest missteps in the early days of the web. Some publications would still be smart to try it.

I’d argue that paywalls are part of the reason Americans’ trust in media is at an all-time low. Less than a third of Americans in a recent Gallup poll say they have “a fair amount” or a “a great deal” of trust that the news is fair and accurate. A large percentage of these Americans see media as being biased. Well, part of the reason they think media are biased is that most fair, accurate, and unbiased news sits behind a wall. The free stuff needn’t be fair or accurate or unbiased. Disinformationists, conspiracy theorists, and Russian and Chinese troll farms don’t employ fact-checkers and libel lawyers and copy editors.

Part of the problem with the current, free news environment is that the platform companies, which are the largest distributors of free news, have deprioritized news. Meta has long had an uncomfortable relationship with news on Facebook. In the past year, according to CNN, Meta has changed its algorithm in a way that has cost some news outlets 30 to 40 percent of their traffic (and others more). Threads, Meta’s answer to X, is “not going to do anything to encourage” news and politics on the platform, says Adam Mosseri, the executive who oversees it. “My take is, from a platforms’ perspective, any incremental engagement or revenue [news] might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny, negativity (let’s be honest), or integrity risks that come along with them.” The platform companies are not in the news business; they are in the engagement business. News is less engaging than, say, dance shorts or chocolate-chip-cookie recipes—or eye-catching conspiracy theories.

As the platforms have diminished news, they have also weakened their integrity and content-moderation teams, which enforce community standards or terms of service. No major platform permits false advertising, child pornography, hate speech, or speech that leads to violence; the integrity and moderation teams take down such content. A recent paper from Barrett’s team at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights argues that the greatest tech-related threat in 2024 is not artificial intelligence or foreign election interference, but something more mundane: the retreat from content moderation and the hollowing-out of trust-and-safety units and election-integrity teams. The increase in bad information on the free web puts an even greater burden on fact-based news reporting.

Now AI-created clickbait is also a growing threat. Generative AI’s ability to model, scrape, and even plagiarize real news—and then tailor it to users—is extraordinary. AI clickbait mills, posing as legitimate journalistic organizations, are churning out content that rips off real news and reporting. These plagiarism mills are receiving funding because, well, they’re cheap and profitable. For now, Google’s rankings don’t appear to make a distinction between a news article written by a human being and one written by an AI chatbot. They can, and they should.

The best way to address these challenges is for newsrooms to remove or suspend their paywalls for stories related to the 2024 election. I am mindful of the irony of putting this plea behind The Atlantic ’s own paywall, but that’s exactly where the argument should be made. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably paid to support journalism that you think matters in the world. Don’t you want it to be available to others, too, especially those who would not otherwise get to see it?

Emergencies and natural disasters have long prompted papers to suspend their paywalls. When Hurricane Irene hit the New York metropolitan area in 2011, The New York Times made all storm-related coverage freely available. “We are aware of our obligations to our audience and to the public at large when there is a big story that directly impacts such a large portion of people,” a New York Times editor said at the time. In some ways, this creates a philosophical inconsistency. The paywall says, This content is valuable and you have to pay for it . Suspending the paywall in a crisis says, This content is so valuable that you don’t have to pay for it . Similarly, when the coronavirus hit, The Atlantic made its COVID coverage—and its COVID Tracking Project—freely available to all.

During the pandemic, some publications found that suspending their paywall had an effect they had not anticipated: It increased subscriptions. The Seattle Times , the paper of record in a city that was an early epicenter of coronavirus, put all of its COVID-related content outside the paywall and then saw, according to its senior vice president of marketing, Kati Erwert, “a very significant increase in digital subscriptions”—two to three times its previous daily averages. The Philadelphia Inquirer put its COVID content outside its paywall in the spring of 2020 as a public service. And then, according to the paper’s director of special projects, Evan Benn, it saw a “higher than usual number of digital subscription sign-ups.”

The Tampa Bay Times , The Denver Post , and The St. Paul Pioneer Press , in Minnesota, all experienced similar increases, as did papers operated by the Tribune Publishing Company, including the Chicago Tribune and the Hartford Courant . The new subscribers were readers who appreciated the content and the reporting and wanted to support the paper’s efforts, and to make the coverage free for others to read, too.

Good journalism isn’t cheap, but outlets can find creative ways to pay for their reporting on the election. They can enlist foundations or other sponsors to underwrite their work. They can turn to readers who are willing to subscribe, renew their subscriptions, or make added donations to subsidize important coverage during a crucial election. And they can take advantage of the broader audience that unpaywalled stories can reach, using it to generate more advertising revenue—and even more civic-minded subscribers.

The reason papers suspend their paywall in times of crisis is because they understand that the basic and primary mission of the press is to inform and educate the public. This idea goes back to the country’s Founders. The press was protected by the First Amendment so it could provide the information that voters need in a democracy. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Every journalist understands this. There is no story with a larger impact than an election in which the survival of democracy is on the ballot.

I believe it was a mistake to give away journalism for free in the 1990s. Information is not and never has been free. I devoutly believe that news organizations need to survive and figure out a revenue model that allows them to do so. But the most important mission of a news organization is to provide the public with information that allows citizens to make the best decisions in a constitutional democracy. Our government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed, and that consent is arrived at through the free flow of information—reliable, fact-based information. To that end, news organizations should put their election content in front of their paywall. The Constitution protects the press so that the press can protect constitutional democracy. Now the press must fulfill its end of the bargain.

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William F. Pepper, 86, Dies; Claimed the Government Killed Dr. King

He represented James Earl Ray and the King family in efforts to prove that Dr. King was the victim of a conspiracy, becoming a celebrity among the conspiracy-minded.

By Clay Risen

William F. Pepper, who was the central figure in a decades-long effort to prove that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther Jr. was killed not by a lone gunman but by a vast government plot, a controversial stance that made him something of a celebrity among the country’s teeming subculture of conspiracy theorists, died on April 7 in Manhattan. He was 86.

His wife, Mina Nguyen-Pepper, said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was pneumonia. He lived in Manhattan.

James Earl Ray shot and killed Dr. King in Memphis on April 4, 1968. He was arrested two months later at Heathrow Airport in London, just before boarding a flight to Brussels and eventually to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which at the time was under white rule.

Mr. Ray pleaded guilty in order to avoid execution, and therefore did not go on trial. But he recanted soon after his conviction, and he spent the rest of his life claiming that he was innocent, himself a victim of a plot to kill Dr. King.

More than anyone else, it was Mr. Pepper, a lawyer, who kept Mr. Ray’s campaign alive long after Mr. Ray’s death in 1998. After taking on Mr. Ray as a client in 1988, he pressed the case across a variety of avenues, including courtrooms, the news media, a television special and three books.

Most experts on the King assassination dismissed Mr. Pepper’s contention, but he was repeatedly able to get a toehold in the mainstream. The televised special, a mock trial, was seen on HBO in 1993. Salon ran an excerpt from his 2017 book , “The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.” He gave a talk at the National Civil Rights Museum that same year.

The mock trial, which featured a jury drawn from around the country but which was largely stage-managed by Mr. Pepper, found Mr. Ray not guilty. In 1999, Mr. Pepper represented members of Dr. King’s family in a successful wrongful-death suit against Loyd Jowers , convincing a jury of their assertion that Mr. Jowers had hired a retired police officer as the real assassin.

But Mr. Pepper’s arguments rarely stood up under scrutiny. Five government investigations and a long list of historians and journalists concluded that Mr. Ray had acted alone. Among them was Hampton Sides, who detailed the hunt for Dr. King’s killer in “ Hellhound on His Trail : The Electrifying Account of the Largest Manhunt in American History” (2010).

At best, they concluded, Mr. Ray may have received some financial support from white supremacists eager to see Dr. King dead — far from the sorts of conspiracies that Mr. Pepper alleged.

He proposed a vast network of plotters, including the F.B.I., President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Mafia. In his 1995 book, “Orders to Kill: The Truth About the Murder of Martin Luther King,” he claimed that a man named Billy Ray Eidson led a Special Forces team to Memphis to kill Dr. King, and that Mr. Eidson was in turn killed to keep the mission a secret.

But when “Turning Point,” an ABC News program, investigated Mr. Pepper’s claims in 1997, it found Mr. Eidson alive and well — and brought him on the show to confront Mr. Pepper.

“We found not a single bit of verifiable evidence to support Mr. Pepper’s theory,” Forest Sawyer, a correspondent for the program, told The New York Times. “I emphasize ‘verifiable,’ because Mr. Pepper says he has other sources he’ll reveal at a later date.”

Mr. Eidson then sued Mr. Pepper. He won $11 million from him and his publisher in 1997.

Nor was the civil case against Mr. Jowers very persuasive to the reporters who covered the trial. Members of the jury and even the judge fell asleep at times, unsworn testimony was allowed as evidence, and Mr. Jowers himself was never called to testify, except through a deposition.

The King family received damages of $100.

William Francis Pepper was born on Aug. 16, 1937, in the Bronx to Irish immigrants. His father, Francis, worked for a railroad, and his mother, Lillian (Gilliland) Pepper, managed the home.

He received a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 1959, a master’s from Teachers College at Columbia in 1960. a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1973 and a law degree from Boston College in 1977.

After graduating from Columbia, he was an instructor in political science at Mercy College in Westchester County, N.Y. He also became active in the antiwar movement. He traveled to South Vietnam as a freelance journalist in 1966, returning with a harrowing account of the toll of napalm bombs on women and children.

That account ran in the countercultural magazine Ramparts. Mr. Pepper claimed it was his article that persuaded Dr. King to come out publicly against the war, and he was in the audience at Riverside Church in Manhattan on April 4, 1967, when Dr. King gave a resounding speech condemning America’s involvement in Southeast Asia.

Mr. Pepper became the executive director of the National Conference for New Politics, which met in Chicago in late 1967 to consider, among other things, running Dr. King and Benjamin Spock, the pediatrician and antiwar activist, as a third-party presidential ticket.

But the conference collapsed amid acrimony between liberal civil rights figures like Dr. King and Black militants, who Mr. Pepper later maintained were actually government saboteurs.

Mr. Pepper first met Mr. Ray in 1977, when he and Ralph Abernathy, who had been a close ally of Dr. King’s, visited him in prison. Both left the meeting convinced that Mr. Ray was not a killer.

Still, it would be another decade before Mr. Pepper took him on as a client. Meanwhile, he had moved to London, where he practiced commercial law on behalf of governments in the Middle East and Asia.

Mr. Pepper married Mina Nguyen in 2014. Along with her, his survivors include their daughter, Lilly.

The King assassination was only one of Mr. Pepper’s interests. He was a frequent presence at conspiracy-theory conventions and a fellow traveler among 9/11 truthers. In 2011, he argued for parole and a new trial for Sirhan Sirhan , who was convicted of killing Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles in 1968, claiming that Mr. Sirhan had been framed.

According to Mr. Pepper, Mr. Sirhan had been hypnotized and “programmed” to fire diversionary shots, while another assassin did the actual killing.

“Sirhan was set up to be the distracting actor,” Mr. Pepper told CNN in 2012, “whilst the shooter bent down close behind Bob and fired close and upward, with four bullets hitting the senator’s body or passing through his clothing.”

Mr. Pepper’s motion was rejected, and Mr. Sirhan remains in prison.

Clay Risen is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk. More about Clay Risen