According to Oxford Dictionaries, euthanasia is “the practice of killing without pain a person who is suffering from a disease that cannot be cured” (Oxford). It derives from the Greek words, ‘eu’ meaning ‘goodly or well’ and ‘thanatos’ meaning ‘death’. The major controversy, however, is whether euthanasia is more ethical than it is unethical.. Those who do not understand the proper definition, contradict the idea and believe that it is against humanity to take a person’s life without permission. The utilitarian ethical theory defines euthanasia by implying that the normative ethics of an act maximising total benefit and reducing suffering proves its validity and correctness (Scherer, Simon 53). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states …show more content…
It provides an abstract concept of a human’s three basic needs: competence, relatedness and autonomy. Competence is the need to be effective in dealing with environment, relatedness is the need to have close relationships with others and autonomy is the need to control the course of one’s life. Euthanasia is a direct root of individual autonomy that states that it is one’s choice to control their own life by making their own decision based on their natural inclination to behave in a certain way. It is important to distinguish between the positive and negative rights of self-determination regarding euthanasia. A positive right of self-determination implies that a person can demand to have euthanasia carried out, providing the criteria for being able to request euthanasia are met. This concludes that only under specific circumstances can euthanasia be carried out to release an individual of suffering. If the circumstances are not met, however, the situation is then no longer considered euthanasia. The Danish Council of Ethics believes that autonomy is “the individual's scope for shaping his or her life and imparting sense and meaning to it” and understands that “the way people die is of great importance to the individuals' overall perception of their existence” (Danish Council of Ethics). Euthanasia enthusiasts stress on the importance of self-determination because it promotes autonomy which is considered to be the most essential trait of human society. According to the Human Rights Declaration, people are entitled to “liberty” which nullifies any action that opposes to a person’s own control over events of critical significance to their identity and life