Euthanasia Ethical Debate

Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia, and the Ethical Debate Between the years of 1991 and 1998 Jack Kevorkian, American pathologist and physician admitted to having assisted in the deaths of over one-hundred and thirty people. "Kevorkian made news so much as to become both a media darling and a folk devil during the 1990s…In short, he became a poster child for all that might be argued both in favor of, and opposition to, euthanasia and assisted suicide during the 1990s” (Pappas 89). Kevorkian’s radicalism became the catalytic agent in the bioethical discussion on the autonomous body and assisted suicide. Kevorkian was not a silent agent but instead assisted in suicides by popularizing and de-privatizing the experience of administered death from

Euthanasia differs from murder because the killing is done without the systematic selfishness of the killer gaining something. However, the ethic debate centers around the variability of euthanasia. According to Roy Perrett, euthanasia can either be voluntary, involuntary, or non-voluntary. Voluntary euthanasia is when the patient has consented to the quest of assisted suicide, involuntary euthanasia is when the patient does not consent to treatment, and non-voluntary is when the patient in unable to consent, an example would be a terminally ill patient who is in irreversible comatose but has formerly declared desire for euthanasia. Although consent is a key factor in practical applications as well as ethical demonstrations of euthanasia, religious influence in the American legal system values doctrine more so than consent, arguing that there is too

Palliative care, medical care specifically for treating patients with severe illnesses, does not always fit the bill to a diagnosis or a pain-free patient. Prolonging life is not synonymous with the relief of suffering. Physicians also have a basic moral obligation to respect the autonomous decisions of patients. “Some few patients, even when provided with excellent palliative