Everyone has the right to an easy death. Discuss.

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Rachael Hay 01/05/07

Everyone has the right to an easy death. Discuss.

        The word ‘Euthanasia’ is derived from Greek and literally means painless, happy death or good death. Today though the meaning has travelled far. It now can mean several things, such as mercy killing, which is the killing of people such as the elderly or mentally ill just because they are judged as not needed any more as they can not contribute to society or assisting in the killing of someone else. The main meaning is that euthanasia is the intentional killing by act or exception of a dependent human being for his or her alleged benefit. As well as meaning several things there are several types of euthanasia.

  • Voluntary euthanasia: When the person who is killed has requested to be killed.
  • Non-voluntary: When the person who is killed made no request and gave no consent.
  • Involuntary euthanasia: When the person who is killed made an expressed wish to the opposite.
  • Assisted suicide: Someone provides an individual with the information, guidance, and means to take their own life with the intention that they will be used for this purpose.
  • Euthanasia By Action: Intentionally causing a person's death by performing an action such as by giving a lethal injection.
  • Euthanasia By Omission: Intentionally causing death by not providing necessary and ordinary (usual and customary) care or food and water.
  • Physician Assisted Suicide: When a doctor helps another person to kill himself or herself.

Euthanasia is only classified as that if death was the intention for what was or was not done. Assisted suicide is different from euthanasia in which someone helps someone to commit suicide but the person carried out the final act e.g. taking the pills themselves. This essay will not include abortion in this essay, as it is not issue here as this is mainly about people wanting a easy death and as abortion takes place when the baby is still a foetus, it cannot want to live or die.

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There are many aspects to euthanasia. The first one is when you decide that you want to end your life because of unbearable pain. This aspect means that you get a choice in whether you continue your life in intolerable amounts of pain, or chose to end your life gracefully and with as much dignity as you can. This also not only benefits your self but also means that you do not have to put other such as family members through watching you in pain and watches you suffering. Some people believe that we owe it to these people to ...

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