Brief Look At Euthanasia Essay, Research Paper

Brief Look at Euthanasia

Euthanasia is one of the most acute and uncomfortable

contemporary problems in medical ethics. Is Euthanasia Ethical? The

case for euthanasia rests on one main fundamental moral principle:

mercy.

It is not a new issue; euthanasia has been discussed-and

practised-in both Eastern and Western cultures from the earliest

historical times to the present. But because of medicine’s new

technological capacities to extend life, the problem is much more.

Euthanasia is a way of granting mercy-both by direct killing and by

letting the person die. This principle of mercy establishes two

component duties:

1. the duty not to cause further pain or suffering; and

2. the duty to act to end pain or suffering already occurring.

Under the first of these, for a physician or other caregiver

to extend mercy to a suffering patient may mean to refrain from

procedures that cause further suffering-provided, of course, that the

treatment offers the patient no overriding benefits. The ph s

performed even though a patient’s survival is highly unlikely;

although patients in arrest are unconscious at the time of

resuscitation, it can be a brutal procedure, and if the patient

regains consciousness, its aftermath can involve considerable pain.

In many such cases, the patient will die whether or not the treatments

are performed. In some cases, however, the principle of mercy may also

demand withholding treatment that could extend the patient’s life if

the treatment is itself painful or discomf The principle of mercy may

also demand letting die in a still stronger sense. Under its second

component, the principle asserts a duty to act to end suffering that

is already occurring. Medicine already honours this duty through its

various techniques Ending the pain, though with it the life, may be

accomplished through what is usually called “passive euthanasia”,

withholding or withdrawing treatment that could prolong life. In the

most indirect of these cases, the patient is simply not given

treatment.

The second component of the mercy principle may also demand

the easing of pain by means more direct than mere allowing to die;

it may require killing. This usually is called “active euthanasia. In

passive euthanasia, treatment is withheld that could sucesses and

waits for eventual death to ensue; rather. it is one that brings the

pain- and the patient’s life- to an end now. If there are also grounds

on which it is merciful not to prolong life, then there are grounds on

which it is merciful to terminat Pain is a thing of the medical past,

and euthanasia is no longer necessary, though it may have been, to

relieve pain. Given modern medical technology and recent remarkable

advances in pain management, the sufferings of the morally wounded and

dying can It is flatly incorrect to say that all pain, including pain

in terminal illness, is or can be controlled. Some people still die in

unspeakable agony. With superlative care, many kinds of pain can

indeed be reduced in many patients, and adequate control ncy may mean

an agonizing final few hours. Even a patient receiving the most

advanced and sympathetic medical attention may still experience

episodes of pain, perhaps altering with consciousness, as his or her

condition deteriorates and the physician att In all of these cases, of

course, the patient can be sedated into unconsciousness; this does

indeed end the pain. But in respect of the patient’s experience, this

is tantamount to causing death: the patient has no further conscious

experience and thus cannot feel pain.