Euthanasia

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Euthanasia
Most people in the United States die what may be called a bad death. More often than not, patients die in pain, their desires concerning treatment neglected. Euthanasia and physician assented suicide have been one of the biggest disputes in U. S. for a very long time.
The word euthanasia originated from the Greek language: eu means “good” and thanatos means “death”. One meaning given to the word is “the intentional termination of life by another at the explicit request of the person who dies.” That is, the term euthanasia normally implies that the act must be initiated by the person who wishes to commit suicide. However, some people define euthanasia to include both voluntary and involuntary termination of life. Like so many moral, ethical, and religious terms, euthanasia has many meanings. The result is mass confusion.
The different types of euthanasia are as follows:
• Passive Euthanasia
• Active Euthanasia
• Physician Assisted Suicide
• Involuntary Euthanasia
Passive euthanasia hastens the death of a person by altering some form of support and letting nature take its course. For example: removing life support equipment, stopping medical procedures, stopping food and water, and not delivering CPR. The most common form of passive euthanasia is to give patients large doses of pain-killers to control pain; in spite of the likelihood that the pain-killer will cause death earlier than if nature would have taken its course. Administering such lethal doses of medication is regarded as ethical in most medical societies.

Active euthanasia involves causing the death of a person through a direct action, in response to a request from that person. The most famous and well known example of mercy killings of patients was administered by Dr. Jack Kevorkian. His patients were frightened that advancing diseases and terminal illness would cause them to die a horrible death in the near future; they wanted q...