Should euthanasia and assisted suicide be legalised?

Authors Avatar

Law and Society                   Jatinder K. Vara

Euthanasia

Should euthanasia and assisted suicide be legalised?

My main focus is to argue the points for and against whether euthanasia should be legalised in this country.

There are many contexts in which the relationship between law and morality may be explored. Euthanasia is one area, which has many moral and legal concepts to consider. Euthanasia is the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependant human being for his or her alleged benefit. If the death is not intended it is not an act of euthanasia. Using this distinction if a third party performs an act, intentionally causing a patients death, euthanasia has occurred. For example, giving a patient a legal injection or putting a paper bag over their head allowing him or her to suffocate, this would be seen as an act of euthanasia. However, in order for assisted suicide to take place, a person must swallow an overdose of drugs that have been provided by a doctor for the purpose of causing death.  Assisted suicide is when a doctor provides a patient with the means to end his own life, but the doctor does not administer it.

The law does not allow us to authorise our own humane death, for example, by lethal injection, when suffering from a painful terminal disease. Any doctor who is involved in a ‘mercy killing’ may be prosecuted for murder or manslaughter as seen in R v Cox (1992). A consultant was charged with attempted murder of V, a patient who was terminally ill and in extreme pain. Shortly before V’s death D had administrated an injection of potassium chloride in a quantity which could have no therapeutic purpose. It was held that the doctor was charged with attempted murder as V had been cremated and thus the actual cause of death could not be established. (Elliot and Quinn)

There have been many attempts to bring about reform of this law, and recently debate has centred on recognition of a ‘living will’ and presumably the rule is based on morality. However, it is difficult to reach a consensus on this issue. A national poll in 1993 found that 79% of people supported the legalisation of euthanasia, suggesting a divergence of law and morality within society.

Join now!

When considering whether this is an area, which the law should intervene, different conclusions are reached depending on the particular theory applied. For example.

Mill’s harm-to-others principle would not advocate intervention, since the intention is to harm oneself not others. The individual is best able to decide when and how he or she should die. This is an issue of individual freedom and there is no reason why the law should not let us die proudly.  

However, Hart’s paternalism would not allow euthanasia to be licensed since the law must protect people from harming themselves.

If ...

This is a preview of the whole essay