Euthanasia Case

Euthanasia

Euthanasia, a Greek word meaning "good death," a term that referred to painless natural death in old age that takes place in comfortable and familiar surroundings. Now euthanasia means when one person ends the life of another person to end pain and suffering for that person. There are two different types of euthanasia they are: active and passive. Active euthanasia can be described as assisting in the death process intentionally. Passive euthanasia is when death is intentionally not prevented, for instance, withholding or sustaining medical treatment.

Another variance of euthanasia is assisted suicide. Assisted suicide can be described as one individual instructs another individual to bring about their own demise. It is a jointly coordinated suicide between the suicidal and the person assisting with death. An in euthanasia, the motive behind assisted suicide is to bring an end to pain and suffering.

Medical doctor's take a Hippocratic Oath that clearly prohibits them from giving their patients poisons to end their life. For that reason, that is why euthanasia and assisted suicide have not been considered legitimate medical acts. Each state in the U.S. has different laws for euthanasia or assisted suicide cases, should they arise. Euthanasia is illegal and punishable as murder throughout the U.S., but is carried out differently in each state. In Wisconsin for example, euthanasia is not condoned or authorized by Wisconsin law, nor is any affirmative or deliberate act or omission other than to allow the natural process of dying.

Euthanasia is still are largely debated topic. For some, euthanasia is the obvious answer to help end pain and suffering. For others however, it is regarded as an immoral and unethical act that shouldn't be considered even at the request of a terminally ill patient in pain. Some of the proponents to euthanasia are: it provides relief to a patient in extreme pain, it provides a way of relief when a person's quality of life is low, it can free up medical expenses and allow more to help others, and it is another case of freedom of choice. The arguments against euthanasia are: it devalues human life, it can become a means of health care cost containment, physicians and other health care professionals should not be involved in intentionally causing death, there is a "slippery slope" effect that has occurred where euthanasia has first been legalized for only terminally ill patients, and later laws are changed to allow it for other patients or to be done non-voluntarily.

Even when patients are allowed to make their own decisions and freely request euthanasia, there can be serious dangers and downfalls. Often times, a patient can be misdiagnosed and the patient could think of euthanasia as a means to an end. That being said, the patient's decision to terminate life would be based solely on misinformation. Human