Brief Background of Euthanasia

     Legalizing voluntary euthanasia can have many advantages and disadvantages. For example, it allows a patient to die painlessly when they are in severe pain; it reassures the patient; and it brings them comfort because they know that they can have a painless death. However, others believe that euthanasia is murder and is unacceptable. The result of legalizing voluntary euthanasia will be the acceptance of involuntary euthanasia.
     The Greeks are the first to accept euthanasia because they believe that sickness is a hardship. In fact, the Greeks support euthanasia; they thing that it is an acceptable thing to do. Researchers even find evidence in the famous city of Ceos that the Greeks have an ancient tradition of committing suicide over the age of sixty years old. Therefore, many of them keep a poison for anyone who wants to die. Because of the Greeks, euthanasia spreads to different countries and becomes more popular around the world (Humphry and Wickett 3-5).
     Euthanasia, to kill someone who is in extreme pain because of an illness that is terminal, or to kill someone by taking away life support or treatment, is found in several different forms ("Euthanasia" 1). Two main forms of euthanasia are passive and active euthanasia. Passive euthanasia is when a patient dies because they no longer have access to some kind of machinery that keeps them alive; passive euthanasia is also when a patient dies because they do not receive treatment for a terminal illness. Active euthanasia, on the other hand, is to take someone's life away by killing them with actions.
     Voluntary and involuntary euthanasia are more descriptive ways of explaining what kind of active or passive euthanasia is performed. Voluntary euthanasia is when a person who wants to die asks someone to help them die, while involuntary euthanasia is when someone who does not want to die is killed because they are not useful to society ("Voluntary Euthanasia" 1-8).
     As said before, because of the Greeks, euthanasia spreads to different countries and becomes more popular around the world. For example, China, who is big on reducing their population, is considering legalizing euthanasia. In China euthanasia came into question when a man named Wang Mingcheng begged a doctor to perform euthanasia on his mother because she was dying slowly and painfully. The doctor eventually agreed to performing euthanasia on her, and on June 29th Wang's mother--the first patient to die from euthanasia in China--died a painless death by taking the medicine. However, Wang was found not guilty because there is no law about euthanasia in China (Jing 2-4).
     Many problems can result from legalizing voluntary euthanasia. Since China's big on reducing their population, legalizing euthanasia could be a slippery slope of killing more people than is really necessary. For example, abortions are already very popular in China because in 1979 the one-child policy was introduced, which basically states that parents will be fined for having more than one child. In China parents prefer having baby boys, so they would have abortions done on the girls in order not to get fined (Suite101 1-2).
     In addition, legalizing voluntary euthanasia could lead to the use of involuntary euthanasia (Steven 1). For example, maybe an individual does not want to be euthanized, but he or she is too old and sick to really benefit the society; therefore, he or she might be euthanized involuntarily. This could create fear among many people because when they get old and maybe sick, they might also be euthanized without their consent. And so, people would not feel safe anymore. Legalizing euthanasia will also unjustly point to the disabled and the poor (One-minute overview 1), and having the option of voluntary-active euthanasia could pressure a patient into believing they are a burden to their family members, and they might feel pressured into dying.
     Since questions dealing with euthanasia are recent, answers to solve this problem are hard to find because of inexperience. And so, some countries have legalized euthanasia to see if they will benefit from it. The Netherlands legalized euthanasia in November 2000; they have guidelines to when one can and cannot use euthanasia. Some of these guidelines are the patient must be voluntarily euthanized; the patient should know and understand the medical condition they are in and any other treatments that could help the patient; they must be experiencing unbearable suffering with no chance of improving this pain, but it does not have to be a terminal illness; other ways to stop the pain had to have been considered and must be ineffective; euthanasia has to be done by a physician; a written record of the euthanasia and the situation is required; and death from euthanasia cannot be considered a natural death. Euthanasia has not been legal long enough to see any dramatic changes in Netherland's government; however, one can easily see how some of these guidelines could be weakened or somewhat altered to create that slippery slope to involuntary euthanasia ("Euthanasia" 5-6).
     In the Australian Northern Territories, the Rights of the Terminally Ill (ROTI) Act was passed in May 1995 by the Parliament; however, it was only in affect for 9 months and then was repealed ("Euthanasia" 6).
     Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act in November 1994; Oregon, like the Netherlands, also had restrictions on euthanasia. These were the patient must be at least 18 years old; he or she must be a resident of Oregon; the patient should talk about his or her decision; and the patient should have less than 6 months left to live. After four years of this law being passed, 140 prescriptions of lethal doses of medication were written, and 91 people died after taking these medications. It was decided, after the Death with Dignity Act was passed, that the act threatened the terminally ill people because it did not give them equal protection ("Euthanasia" 6-7).
     Euthanasia has no right or wrong solution because advantages and disadvantages will always come from it. One thing is for sure; if euthanasia is made illegal, then we will not have to discuss all of bad that comes from it because it is illegal. No one would worry about this slippery slope to involuntary euthanasia; they would not have to fight for their own lives or be scared that when they are older, their lives could be in jeopardy. But if it is illegal, there is always that chance of dying painfully. If there were a way to have voluntary euthanasia legal without this slippery slope ever being an issue, then I believe there will be less problems concerning euthanasia.
    



Wang Mingcheng (in the hospital) also asked for euthanasia
to be done on him, but his request was denied. And so, the
big debate over euthanasia began.

Works Cited

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Hemler, Steven R. "The Slippery Slope of Euthanasia."

     Holy Spirit Interactive. 6 November 2009. 14 September 2010
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Humphry, Derek and Ann Wickett. The Right to Die. New York, NY: Harper
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