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Tracy Lancaster
Ethics Euthenasia
less death, by
J. Willgoose
November 24, 2009
agreement and with compassion, to ease suffering. There are also four different kind of euthanasia; active, passive, voluntary and involuntary. Active euthanasia means carrying out some action to help someone to die, whereas passive euthanasia is to not carry out actions which would prolong life. Thus with regards to the above, voluntary euthanasia is helping a person who wishes to die to do so and involuntary euthanasia is helping a person to die when they are unable to request this for themselves. It is argued on a yearly basis as to whether euthanasia should be legalised.
There are several arguments in favour for the legalisation of euthanasia. In voluntary euthanasia, it’s argued that it shows mercy for those suffering with pain and a disease with no cure, a view which Thomas More (1478-1535) supports. In his book Utopia (1516), More argued that when a patient suffers ‘a torturing and lingering pain, so that there is no hope, either of recovery or ease, they may choose rather to die, since they cannot live but in much misery’. It is an opportunity to end needless suffering, one that we already offer to animals, thus should be offered to humans.
Other advocates of voluntary euthanasia argue that it should be an option for an adult who is able and willing to make such a decision (autonomy). They argue that it should be on offer as one option among many, along with the kind of care of patients with a terminal illness is offered by hospitals and hospices. This argument is maintained by John Stuart Mill who, in his book On Liberty (1859), argued that in matters that do not concern others, individuals should have full autonomy: ‘The only part of the conduct of any one, for which (a citizen) is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over...