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Hippocratic Argument Against Euthanasia

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Peter Singer once said, “Of all the arguments against voluntary euthanasia, the most influential is the slippery slope: once we allow doctors to kill patients, we will not be able to limit the killing to those who want to die.” Euthanasia is the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (such as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy (ProCon.org). In other words, it is a drug that is given to patients who have decided to take their own life to no longer be in suffering. Euthanasia should not be used because it devalues the human life, it contradicts the Hippocratic oath that is still used today, and euthanasia could be used to control health care costs. …show more content…

The human life is a precious thing we had been granted. To just take it away it is almost like you are not acknowledging that the human life is a gift that no money is able to buy. Instead of following the patient's way we should try to find ways that will help the patients life and show the patients that their life does indeed have value. For example, there are many ways that a patient's pain is controllable, and in cases of depression, therapy can sometimes be the best option. “Modern medicine has the ability to control pain. Killing oneself is not a way to end intense pain; a doctor better trained in palliative care is the solution.” (TEXAS RIGHT TO LIFE, 2010). In other words, instead of finding the easy way out of a pain that a patient is receiving, we as a community can be able to find solutions that will benefit the patient in the long run. In a majority of the cases, patients that ask for euthanasia suffer from depression without even knowing it. With these patients, we need to treat them like any other patient that has depression and make sure that they get the best mental

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Threatening to diminish the value of life is very dangerous. Euthanasia, also called mercy killing, is the practice of doctors intentionally ending a terminally ill patient’s life in what is purportedly a gentle and dignified manner. The term originated in ancient Greek and means “easy death.” Doctors perform euthanasia by administering lethal drugs or by withholding treatment that would prolong the patient’s life. Physician-assisted suicide is also a form of euthanasia, but the difference between the two methods is that in euthanasia, doctors end the patient’s life with lethal injections, whereas, in physician-assisted suicide, patients kill themselves with a lethal amount of drugs prescribed by the doctors.

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One in six Americans live in a state where a doctor can legally prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to a patient (Carter). For years, there has been much argument about whether physician-assisted suicide, in which a doctor prescribes a lethal dose of medication to a patient upon their request to end their life, is immoral or morally permissible (Crocker). Many opponents of physician assisted suicide fear the idea that physicians are encouraging those with fatal illness to end their lives, as opposed to encouraging them to fight to improve the quality of their life. Yet, others prefer that there should be emphasis on autonomy and an easier way out for those in financial ruins. According to the statistics from

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In addition, since the obligation of physicians is to make people feel more comfortable, including relieving pain and suffering of illness from patients and enhancing their living standard etc., normally this aim is achieved by curing them; however, if it can be sure that patients are unresponsive to treatments, then agreeing with helping suicide would be the only way for physicians to prevent the dignity and self-esteem of dying patients. According to the study in Oregon in the U.S., where physician-assisted suicide is legal, by M.P.H. Ganzini et al. In some instances, severe symptoms may cause patients have no dignity and loss self-care ability (Ganzini et al, 2009). Therefore, it is not humanistic to leave dying patients in pain from illness when there is no any ways to cure

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In the defense of Physician Assisted Suicide, a wide publicly talked about topic, it should be a choice every terminally ill patient receives. Physician Assisted suicide is when a patient is terminally ill and has no chances of recovering. The patient themselves can make the decision, with the help from their physician, to get lethally injected and end their life reducing and ending the pain. In America each state has a little over 3,000 patients that are terminally ill contact an advocacy group known as the Compassion and Choices to try to reduce end-of- life suffering and perhaps hasten their death. Physician Assisted Suicide shouldn’t be looked at as suicide, but as ending the pain and suffering from an individual whose life is going to be taken away anyway.

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Doctor-assisted suicide, or euthanasia, can cause deaths under circumstances where the person is not mentally able to make that decision for themselves. Doctor-assisted suicide should be illegal because of how many unnecessary and unwanted deaths it has caused. Doctor-assisted suicide, or euthanasia, gives doctors too much power to kill, it also persuades powerless people to think about ending their life, and it makes patients who don 't actually want to die request it in belief that they are burdensome to the people around them. Doctors receive too much power from patients and medical facilities to assist suicide to patients with illnesses or patients who think they need to end their life in general. According to Cristian Nordqvist, euthanasia is known as "the means to take a deliberate action with the express intention of ending a life to relieve intractable suffering" (Nordqvist, Christian).

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There sometimes is a point that a human reaches in degeneration that modern medicines cannot aide or remedy. As described by Lewis Cohen, “Medication such as morphine can help the terminally ill manage pain, but it can’t ameliorate their agony at no longer being the same people that they were before the illness” (Cohen). The unbearable pain and loss of normalcy that accompanies those with terminal illnesses is what pushes them to consider assisted suicide. The mentality is seen simply as “if one is going to die anyway, then why not choose how and when.” Unfortunately, the choice of death for those with incurable circumstances has been twisted into other views and is being misinterpreted as a way for doctors to mercy kill their patients.

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When Suicide Is the Best Option Physician-assisted suicide is the voluntary termination of one’s own life by administration of a lethal substance with direct, or indirect assistance of a physician. This year approximately 1,228,600 people are expected to be diagnosed with cancer. Of those diagnosed 564,800 are expected to die. Why should these people have to suffer in pain before they die? Fatally ill people should be able to have the right to decide to end their pain.

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Patients who decide to end their lives but lack the proper resources for physician-assisted suicide will take drastic measures to end their lives. As described in a YouTube video The New York Times uploaded, “Jack Kevorkian and the Right to Die” many patients still find ways to end their lives, often more dreadful and burdensome. The video described how many patients choose to starve themselves to accelerate their time of death or relocate to a state where physician-assisted suicide is allowed. Despite the illegalization of physician-assisted suicide, patients determined to end their lives continue to find methods to go through with their desires. By not allowing people to have the proper means to end their lives, they turn to more drastic and painful measures to force death upon themselves.

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Fighting a terminal illness is hard for a person to experience especially since there are many devastating hardships that come with it. In the Right-to-Die Debate it argues on if people should have the choice to die with dignity and whether or not assisted suicide and the use of Euthanasia should be legal. An article states, “While 58 percent of Americans support physician-assisted suicide, 69 percent back the right to "end patient's life by painless means," showing that the people of the United States are having a hard time agreeing with the limitations on assisted suicide (2). Assisted Suicide should be legal in every state to allow someone living with a life threatening disease to feel more content on his or her passing.

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Many pro-euthanasia believers will use the autonomy argument and debate the opinion that patients should have the right to choose when and how to they want to die. In an article in the Houston Chronicle, Judge Reinhardt ruled on this topic by stating “a competent, terminally-ill adult, having lived nearly the full measure of his life, has a strong liberty interest in choosing a dignified and humane death… (De La Torre).” However, dignity cannot be measured by the level of pain or the speed in which the individual dies, because it is already a characteristic of a person’s worth as a human being (Middleton). Allowing a patient to live their life to the fullest until the very end is surely a more humane and dignified death then cutting that life short in fear of what it is coming through the practice of euthanasia. While death for these patients can be a sad ending, it does not have to condemn a person to a remaining life of sadness and negativity.

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