What is Euthanasia?
Euthanasia is the intentional killing of a person in order to end that person’s suffering. It is the intention to bring about the person’s death that is the key factor. Voluntary euthanasia means the person requests euthanasia. People who support legalising euthanasia are mainly campaigning for people suffering from incurable and deadly sicknesses, so they may be allowed to die painlessly by a lethal injection (or other painless mechanisms) at their request.
The Netherlands, in 1983, was the first country to legalise euthanasia and now has around 3000 people requesting it each year. Together with Belgium, these are currently the only two countries that have legalised euthanasia. Each has very strict conditions.
Who should make decisions about when, where and how we die?
Is it promoting death or is it inhumane to expect patients to endure continual suffering when there is no chance of recovering? These are questions that face policy makers every time the euthanasia issue is raised.
In 1995, the Northern Territory legalised voluntary euthanasia. However, this bill was quickly invalidated through federal intervention and voluntary euthanasia in the Northern Territory became illegal once more. Recent public opinion polls have shown that 81% of Australians support voluntary euthanasia; however the argument is still widely debated.
When should euthanasia be practised?
Advocates of voluntary euthanasia believe that a person should have the legal right to be assisted in ending his or her life if that person meets all of the following criteria. The person:
- is suffering from a terminal illness
- is unlikely to benefit from the discovery of a cure within the person’s lifetime
- as a direct result of the illness, is suffering from intolerable pain or is constantly attached to life support
- has expressed a voluntary and competent wish to die, and if conditions 1–3 have been met. ‘Competent’ refers to being legally described as ‘mentally stable’ and able to make one’s own decisions in a sound state of mind.
Defining terms
Volountary euthanasia is different from assisted suicide and is defined by how the death occurs.
- Assisted sucide refers to suicide where the dying person commits the final act of killing him/herself—for example, if a doctor prepares a lethal injection but the patient pushes a switch that activates it, or if a patient overdoses on pills provided by a doctor or anyone else.
- Voluntary euthanasia is when one assists another’s death by committing the last and fatal act, such as giving a patient a lethal injection or suffocating someone to death.
Voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal only in the Netherlands and Belgium. Euthanasia is illegal in the USA, though a statute in place since 1997 in the State of Oregon supports assisted suicide where the final act is initiated by the patient.
How do I know this?
Euthanasia.com,
http://www.euthanasia.com/index.html
Religioustolerance.org,
Euthanasia and physician assisted suicide http://www.religioustolerance.org/euthanas.htm
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Voluntary euthanasia http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/euthanasia-volun...
