What is Euthanasia.

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

Euthanasia

The term “euthanasia” comes from the two Greek words Eu and Thanatos and means and easy gentle death. This is were the patient requests the physician to en their life, this is called voluntary euthanasia. There is also involuntary euthanasia this is were, say the patient is in a coma and cannot make the request for themselves so the doctors decide to make the decision for them. This is a kind of murder.

Euthanasia can involve emotive discussion. There are certainly points for and against that disserved careful consideration. It is my intention through the course of this essay to look at these arguments and see if we can reach a conclusion.

There are a lot of points for and against euthanasia here are a few:

If the victim is terminally ill with the prospect of painful death, they may want to end the suffering before it really begins. I feel that if it is what the person really wants then it is what you should give them. It is their choice and I think that we should give them. It is their choice and I think we should respect that. If a dog were sick you would end the suffering for that poor dog. You wouldn’t let it suffer any more than it had to. Then why let a human being go through all the suffering. Baring in mind that this is what the person really wants.

Reasons for involuntary euthanasia:

This is a preview of the whole essay

Reasons for involuntary euthanasia:

When someone has been a coma for 6 years and during those 6 years has not so much as moved a mussel, I can see why the might want to turn off the life-support machine. I could never be the 1 to flip the switch. Could you. You never know what could happen, maybe they could pull through you never know. If I was the person who flipped the switch the only thing that would be going through my mind is what if I had waited had waited a few more months they could have pulled through. Then again if we kept thinking like that then we could never bring ourselves to do it. Perhaps there was someone else with a 60- 40% chance of recovery that needed that equipment, I would give them that chance. Would you?

Reasons against euthanasia

When someone makes the decision to end their life, it is the last and most important decision they will ever make. They need to think it through really carefully and know in their heart of hearts that is what they want. Even when that is sorted they need to find someone to carry out the task and there isn’t exactly going to be quos of people wanting the job of killing sick people. The victim may be so ill that they can’t do it themselves. So who’s going to do it?

Another reason against euthanasia is God put us on earth he has a plan and he knows when we should live and when we should die we shouldn’t go interfering with this. It is a form of murder. The 6th commandment says “ thy shall not commit murder.” By carrying out euthanasia we are in a way breaking this commandment.

There are so many reasons for and against euthanasia and it seems for every good reason for it there is an equally good reason against to cross it out.

A few years ago my granddad went into hospital for a simple operation. Everything seemed fine until an infection started in the wound. From that the infection spread to his heart he then had to get surgery on his heart when an aneurisms formed in his brain, he then had to get surgery on his brain. This resulted in him taking a stroke and leaving him paralysed down one side. He was in intensive care for months. He made a remarkable recovery and about 3 months later was moved back to Derry hospital were he spent another 5 months gradually getting better. During all that most of the doctors an nurses felt there was no hope for him and as you can imagine they were really shocked when they saw how well he was doing they all thought there was no hope for him. As my mum and grandma were making arrangements for him to come home they got a call from the hospital telling them an abscess had erupted in his stomach and that he had already been through too much to perform more surgery. We prayed for another miracle but I guess it was his time.

After a year and a half of suffering he was finally in no more pain.

I am leaving the conclusion up to you to decide because I don’t think anyone has the right to tell anyone what to do with his or her life. They may advise them but never tell them.

Don’t forget you never know what could happen.