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Why Is Euthanasia Morally Wrong

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It is of no opposition that doctors are life savers. Physicians do all that they can to ensure that the patient they are caring for is being treated to prolong their life and well being. With that being said, what if the doctor takes the necessary steps in doing the complete opposite? At first, this idea seems hardly permissible. Yet some might say in a situation where the patient's death is inevitable, why draw out their pain and suffering? Hence we get into the delicate and complex situation of euthanasia. There are two forms of euthanasia: active and passive. Active euthanasia is where a medical professional consciously takes action that causes the patient to die. Such as administering a lethal dose of something toxic that would quickly …show more content…

It states that “the intentional termination of the life of one human being by another” is morally wrong and that a doctor shouldn’t take action in taking their patient's life. Yet, it then goes to say that ending treatment is not “the intentional termination of the life of one human being by another”. Yet if treatment is needed to keep the patient alive and denying them treatment is going to kill them, its is contradictioning the statement completely. Mercy killing is thought to be wrong, but passively allowing the patient to die is the morally correct thing to do? As he has previously identified, there is no real difference between killing and letting …show more content…

Prolonging the life of someone who it will not benefit from it is what she calls this extraordinary treatment. The example she provides is giving a brain-dead patient in a coma a respirator. Ordinary treatment would be treating a patient who will potentially be cured of the illness that they posses. Such as using the respirator in the previous example for a patient that has a critical case of a respiratory disease. It makes the AMA policy become more transparent due to the fact that giving treatment that won’t help the patient long term means we’re not supplying an extraordinary means of

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Gill argues that keeping a person healthy cannot be a physician’s only moral duty because in cases of terminal ill patients, they can no longer be treated or healed (372). If a physician’s only duty were to heal patients then they would not tend to the terminally ill because there would be nothing else that they could do, which is something that most people would find to be morally wrong (Gill, 373). No one would be okay with a doctor not helping a person at all who has received a terminal sentence. So instead of promoting health in this case, the physicians must find a way to reduce the suffering of the patient. This means that the physician should be able to reduce the suffering in the way that the patient asks for.

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Both patients are choosing to die and taking deliberate measures to do so by changing the routine(s) of their treatment. If the means to die by stopping medication are permissible, the means to die by taking medication ought to be permissible. The advent of technology has made many contributions to sustain life. However, before this technology, many people would die without years of suffering. Today, people with critical illnesses are given the option to stop treatment in order to hasten death.

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Giving patients treatment so they can die upon their wishes, not the doctors, would be considered Utilitarian ethical principles. When the patient has

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In 2011, Dr. Ken Murray wrote How Doctors Die. It was a powerful (and viral) essay that explained the way physicians viewed end-of-life care. He wrote: “Of course, doctors don’t want to die; they want to live. But they know enough about modern medicine to know its limits.” It is these limits that he uses to describe what medical professionals call “futile care” which is somewhat of a last-ditch attempt to prolong life.

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In the documentary, Bill Moyers talks to three terminally ill patients, their families, and their doctors about the concerns with physician-assisted suicide (PAS). PAS allows a terminally ill patient to hasten an inevitable and unavoidable death through a lethal dose. The patients considered PAS in order to end their prolonged suffering. The legal role of advance directives in end of life issues allows a patient to specify how he wishes to be treated by a healthcare provider during a progressively weakened state. Advance directives may provide patients with freedom to choose end of life treatment, but moral and religious implications, the ethical battle between a physician’s duty to care and inner-conscious, and state laws pose threats to PAS.

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Ultimately, if the physician has exhausted all reasonable palliative measures, it is the patient—and only the patient—who can judge whether death is harmful or a good to be sought,” (Rogatz). If nothing that a physician tries to save and help their patient

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Their argument is that the medical practice of physician-assisted death is unethical because it violates the bioethical principle of nonmaleficence, which refers to the obligation of the physician to not cause needless harm. Physician-assisted death is not causing needless harm because the patient themselves is requesting the death-dealing medication and taking them, or not taking them, when, and if, they feel ready to die. It would be needless harm if the physician in question actively euthanatized the patient by administering the death-dealing medications without the patient’s consent. However, from a legal standpoint, physician-assisted death does not include active euthanasia, which is illegal in all fifty states; it simply requires the physician to provide the mentally competent patient with the information they asked for regarding the process and a prescription for the death dealing medication. The physician is not causing needless harm to a terminally ill patient who wishes to die mercifully on their own time instead of six months down the line in possible pain and suffering.

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The oath requires that doctors do no harm to their patients. However, when debating the issue of physician-assisted suicide, one must consider what doing harm actually means. It is here that a profound ethical quandary is present, because many people believe that causing a patient’s death is doing

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In claiming that the procedure allows patients to have dignity at death is flawed because the purpose of the medical profession is to ensure a dignified life. In accordance with the physician’s code of ethics or Hippocratic oath, physicians are not allowed to do harm to their patients because their role is to provide a dignified life with health to the community. Instead of helping people kill themselves, we should offer them premium medical care and solace human presence.

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1301 Words | 6 Pages

Technological advances have prolonged human life and changed not only what it means to practice medicine, but what it means to be alive. In some cases, patients turn to their physicians to assist them in dying. The purpose of this essay is not to promote physician aid in dying or even provide a stance on the subject. Rather, the purpose is to make readers question when it is morally permissible to “kill” a patient. Through defining the doctrine of double effect, physician aid in dying and exploring the types of medical cases where killing a patient is morally permissible, I argue that there is no moral difference between physician aid in dying and the doctrine of double effect.

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1136 Words | 5 Pages

The goals of the medical model are to cure, restore function, and prolong life even if that does not include a cure for the problem at hand. The prolonging of life also brings other issues into light. By prolonging life, you could also be prolonging death. The issue with this is that some people may not wanting this to occur. In the “Cost of Dying” video, Steve Kroft reports that “a vast majority of people want to die at home, 75% of people die in a hospital or nursing home”

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With the help of a doctor, the terminally ill patient can die in peace and hopefully free of pain. Today, assisted suicide has

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The possible legalization of euthanasia can cause a great disturbance in how people view life and death and the simplicity of how they would treat it. "There are many fairly severely handicapped people for whom a simple, affectionate life is possible." (Foot, p. 94) As demonstrated, the decision of terminating a person 's life is a very fragile and difficult one, emotionally and mentally. Nevertheless, it’s a choice we can make if it is passive euthanasia being expressed.

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1770 Words | 8 Pages

The most dramatic example of passive euthanasia occurs in the episode “Sympathy for the Parents”, which follows the one discussed earlier in this essay. A woman, Allison, comes into the hospital with her husband, Gary, after fainting and discovers that her cancer has returned. She undergoes a surgery to remove the tumor in her abdominal cavity and the surgery is successful. However, after the surgery, she is unable to breath on her own and the surgeons discover a brain hemorrhage that is inoperable. Allison is in an irreversible coma with no brain activity and her heart is unable to beat without the help of machines.

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547 Words | 3 Pages

Some people having living wills on what they want for end of life care or of it would happen unexpectedly. It is still a strong debate amongst people when it is Active and Passive euthanasia. Active Euthanasia is when one takes action, such as using lethal injection. A Passive Euthanasia is when someone doesn’t intervene; as such a hospital does nothing to further to save a person’s life which is called the DNR code status. Are these choices different?

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