Euthanasia
In recent years, has become a very heated debate. It is a Greek word that means "easy death" but the controversy surrounding it is just the opposite. Whether the issue is refusing prolonged life mechanically, assisting suicide, or active , we eventually confront our socity's fears toward death itself. Above others, our culture breeds fear and dread of aging and dying. It is not easy for most of the western world to see death as an inevitable part of life. However, the issues that surround are not only about death, they are about ones liberty, right to privacy and control over his or her own body. So, the question remains: Who has the right? Under current U.S. law, there are clear ...
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is condemned by the American Medical Association. Although it is not a crime to be present when a person takes his or her life, it is a crime to take direct action intentionally designed to help facilitate death--no matter how justifiable and compassionate the circumstances may be.1 With active , it is the doctor who administers the lethal drug dose. Since it is tantamount to homicide, the few U.S. doctors who perform it have been brought to trial but none of them have ever been convicted and imprisoned. Modern interest in in the United States began in 1870, when a commentator, Samuel Williams, proposed to the Birmingham Speculative Club that be permitted "in all cases of hopeless and painful illness" to bring about "a quick and painless death." The word "painless" is important: the idea of began gaining ground in modern times not because of new technologies for agonizingly prolonging life but because of the discovery of new drugs, such as morphine and various anesthetics for ...
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of attorney to do so.4 In 1976, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided the parents of Karen Ann Quinlan won the right to remove her from a ventilator because she was in a persistent vegetative state. The justices unanimously ruled that this act was necessary to respect Quinlan's right to privacy.5 Some medical ethicists warned then that the ruling was the beginning of a trend--the slippery slope--which could lead to decisions to end a person's life being made by third parties not only on the basis of medical condition but also on such considerations as age, economic status, or even ethnicity.6 In 1990, the Supreme Court case, Cruzan v. Missouri, recognized the principle that a person ...
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Euthanasia. (2005, June 7). Retrieved November 22, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Euthanasia/28113
"Euthanasia." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 7 Jun. 2005. Web. 22 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Euthanasia/28113>
"Euthanasia." Essayworld.com. June 7, 2005. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Euthanasia/28113.
"Euthanasia." Essayworld.com. June 7, 2005. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Euthanasia/28113.
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