Ethics of euthanasia - introduction

Ethics of euthanasia - introduction

What is Euthanasia?

Euthanasia is the deliberate killing of a person for the benefit of that person.

In most cases euthanasia is carried out because the person who dies asks for it, but there are cases called euthanasia where a person can't make such a request.

A person who undergoes euthanasia is usually terminally ill, but there are other situations in which some people want euthanasia.

The ethics of Euthanasia

Euthanasia raises agonising moral questions like these:

• is it ever right for another person to end the life of a terminally ill patient who is in severe pain or enduring other suffering?
• if euthanasia is sometimes right, under what circumstances is it right?
• is there any moral difference between killing someone and letting them die?

At the heart of the ethical and religious arguments over euthanasia are the different ideas that people have of the meaning and value of human existence, and of whether human beings have the right to decide issues of life and death for themselves.

There are also a number of arguments based on practical issues.

Some people think that euthanasia shouldn't be allowed even if it was morally right, because it would be abused and used as a cover for murder.

Killing or letting die

Euthanasia can be carried out either by doing something, such as giving a lethal injection, or by not to do something necessary to keep the person alive (for example failing to keep their feeding tube going).

'Extraordinary' medical care

It is not euthanasia if a patient dies as a result of refusing extraordinary or burdensome medical treatment.

Euthanasia and pain relief

It's not euthanasia to give a drug in order to reduce pain, even though the drug causes the patient to die sooner. This is because the doctor's intention was to relieve the pain, not to kill the patient. This argument is sometimes known as the Doctrine of Double Effect.

Mercy killing

Very often people call euthanasia 'mercy killing', perhaps thinking of it for someone who is terminally ill and suffering prolonged, unbearable pain. The word euthanasia comes from the Greek and means easy death.

Why people want euthanasia

Most people think unbearable pain is the main reason people seek euthanasia, but some surveys in the USA and the Netherlands showed that less than a third of requests for euthanasia were because of severe pain.

Terminally ill people can have their quality of life severely damaged by physical conditions such as incontinence, nausea and vomiting, breathlessness, paralysis, difficulty in swallowing...

Psychological factors that cause people to think of euthanasia include depression, fear of loss of control or of dignity, feeling a burden, or dislike of being dependent.