Euthanasia: The Right Thing?

Facedown, unconscious, not breathing, and without a pulse. That was the state Terri Schiavo was in when she was found on February 25, 1990. Two months following being found, she emerged from a coma and was diagnosed as in persistent vegetative state. After fifteen agonizing years of being conscious but unaware of her surroundings, unable to have thoughts, memories, emotions, and feelings of pain or pleasure: her feeding tube was detached and she died from dehydration. This was due to the act of euthanasia. Schiavo and many others like her have no say in decisions of this kind, but it was for her own good. Was it right?

Deliberate methods of taking a patient’s life is labeled as active euthanasia, while an alternative procedure is known as passive. Passive euthanasia is more common as it is the act of removing or stopping certain measures that keep the patient alive. But the results are identical: a life ends. There are numerous highly vital reasons for why this should be legalized and why it should not. Although Euthanasia is legal in Belgium, Thailand, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the U.S. states Washington and Oregon, the majority of the world has ruled it to be illegal. The brief list of countries authorizing euthanasia evidently indicates that the majority of the world governments concur that it shouldn’t be legal. There are very justifiable and powerful reasons for why they think so.

Join now!

The Hippocratic Oath is a vow that every aspiring doctor is obliged to make, and practicing euthanasia would be opposing it. The oath plainly states “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for, nor will make a suggestion to this effect” which euthanasia clearly violates. With that being true, according this pledge “using the knife” is not entitled either; thus, surgery would be just as much of a violation. If surgery can be an exception, can euthanasia not be one?

The answer to whether this exception should be tolerated is clear; surgery is not ...

This is a preview of the whole essay