Euthanasia: Right To Die Vs. Mortality
Euthanasia:
Right to Die Vs. Morality
Euthanasia is a term contrived from Greek; meaning “good death” or “easy death”. The definition of euthanasia is the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy. There are many terms synonymous to the term, such as: mercy killing, assisted suicide or even more stigmatic terms such as “legal murder.” The practice of euthanasia has been done for as long as we have known starting in ancient times. It is known that back then that euthanasia was administered to soldiers who were injured in fighting during a battle. These injured soldiers, if suffering and known to die, were either hit on the back of their skull with a hammer or they would break their necks in order to sever the spinal chord. In contrast now in the present, wherever euthanasia is legal, doctors typically administer a lethal dose of sedatives or drugs in order to stop the patient’s heart without pain or suffering, this is typically known as physician assisted suicide. If euthanasia is administered in an illegal situation, people typically resort to crude methods in order to end their suffering; this may consist of using illegal drugs or even over the counter medication, weapons of all sorts, alcohol, etc. There are many different classes or categories of euthanasia. First is indirect euthanasia which means the involvement of a clinician (e.g. physician, clinical nurse practitioner, and pharmacist) as an agent who participates only by providing treatment for symptoms, such as pain, with a known side effect being an early death. This is different to physician assisted suicide whereby a doctor purposefully provides the means to a patient in the form of drugs and delivery mechanisms to kill him/herself. This could mean writing or filling a prescription for medications in a quantity large enough to cause death when...
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