Is it ethical to perform euthanasia in order to end a human's pain and suffering?
• Euthanasia: the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering.
• Voluntary euthanasia: The patient who is killed has requested to be killed
• Non-voluntary: The patient who is killed made no request or consent.
• Involuntary euthanasia: The patient who is killed made an expressed wish to the contrary.
• Passive euthanasia: The patient dies when a physician stops using medical equipment to preserve her/his existence.
Euthanasia is unethical for the reason that the practice of ending a life prematurely in order to end pain and suffering of another is dehumanising and violates historically accepted codes of medical ethics, creates
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Life is God's gift and its end is to be determined by Him.
• "There is no God besides me, I put to death and I bring to life" (Deuteronomy 32:39).
o For this reason Christians believe that it would be wrong to take life: o “You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13)
o The Bible displays that human beings are not meant to choose when they die: o “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4)
• In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI declared, “Freedom to kill is not a true freedom but a tyranny that reduces the human being into slavery.” “Scripture, in fact, clearly excludes every form of the kind of self-determination of human existence that is presupposed in the theory and practice of euthanasia.”
Christian doctrines:
• The community should care for people who are dying, and for those who are close to them and the best possible palliative care should be provided
• People should face death and dying with honesty and