Pros And Cons Of Voluntary Euthanasia

According to Singer, “voluntary euthanasia is euthanasia carried out at the voluntary request of the person killed, who must be, when making the request, mentally competent and adequately informed” (Singer 2011, 157). Euthanasia is a term used to describe a death that is pain free and fast. This is often done by certain pill or injection medications that will kill you quick and painlessly. Voluntary euthanasia is when the patient requests by their own free will and show that they are mentally capable of making this decision for a fast and painless death. The patient also must be informed and completely understand what euthanasia entails and the result will be a quick and painless death. There is also a way for a patient who is not capable to

It sounds reasonable that if a patient is ill with pneumonia and needs antibiotics to treat them a doctor would prescribe the antibiotics and the patient would recover and continue to live. Otherwise without treatment of antibiotics the illness will kill them. However, what if the patient was 86 years old with dementia and unable to care for themselves or remember anything. At what point is it right to let nature take its course with the pneumonia and kill the patient by not taking antibiotics verses prolonging a deteeriating quality of life with antibiotics. Suppose the patient and doctor decide not to treat the illness and let nature take its course in killing them. This is very common and patients decide not to receive treatment even though they know it will eventually kill them. The next argument is, what would be wrong with allowing euthanasia as a fast and painless death verses a slow deterioration if the ending result of them both is ultimately death. Singer claims, “If there is no intrinsic moral difference between killing and allowing to die, active euthanasia should also be accepted as humane and proper in certain circumstances” (Singer 2011,