Euthanasia - A Humane Way of Ending Life

Yet, euthanasia remains a controversial subject, and the expression itself can be considered controversial as some see it as a euphemism hiding the dead on target nature of the action it describes. Several definitions of the word can be found, differentiated according to the approach being taken, whether it is etymological, legal, religious, or philosophical. fit to the Random Ho ingestion Unabridged Dictionary, there are deuce definitions for the word "euthanasia." The first is that the word is a synonym for "mercy killing," or "the act of putting to death painlessly or allowing to die, as by withholding extreme medical measures, a person or animal hapless from an incurable, esp. a painful, distemper or condition." The second is that the term means "painless death."

The word derives from the Grecian for " tardily death," based on eu for easy and thanatos for death. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) offers a much panoptic history of the word based on the same Greek roots. The OED also offers three definitions for the word. The first is that the word means a "gentle and easy death"; the second, the "means of bringing nearly a gentle and easy death"; and finally, "the action of inducement a gentle and easy death," said to be fresh use of the word.

Euthanasia is a political issue in America today, though the term that has come to be use more commonly is "assisted self-destruction," which could be differentiated from the more general idea of euthanasia in that assisted suicide implies th

Humphry, Derek. Let Me Die forrader I Wake. New York: The Grove Press, 1984.

Physicians usually assume that what patients and families require in a crisis is resuscitation--life at all costs. However, surveys show that in the public eye(predicate) opinion is on the side of shooting all "invasive" and " fantastic" treatment in such cases ("Euthanasia: What Is the 'Good Death'?" 21). In many a(prenominal) cases, the patient who is being kept alive also suffers capacious pain and indignity, which cannot necessarily be measured objectively.

The approach suggested by Pope John Paul II is not unreasonable, nevertheless it is not clear how different his view is from that of physicians who also use painkillers which may shorten life or who might withdraw certain procedures believing them to be extraordinary and intrusive. While physicians and the pontiff might be closer together than they think, what is needed is a clearer set of guidelines showing when procedures can be withdrawn and when they cannot.

ugly takes many forms, and the scurvy of the family of the patient should not be ignored. Shertz and Blendon conjure surveys that show that half of those who say they would want euthanasia would get hold of death so as to not burden their families and not, as is widely supposed, because they had pain (Shertz and Blendon 590). The family faces difficult decisions when there is a terminally ill patient dependent on that family to make this essential decision. Often, they will have discussed the matter beforehand. More often, they will not, nevertheless the family is still the decision-making unit faced with the need to balance the suffering of the patient with the possibility of relief. In addition, the family itself is likely to be suffering in sympathy with the patient as well as beacuse of the decision that has to be made. In nonvoluntary active euthanasia, physicians (or family members or friends) make the decision to immediately end the lives of incompetent patients who face to be in enormous pain or suffering, a
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