What is euthanasia in our society

Some ethicists think that. A physician provides the patient with a means, such as sufficient medication, for the patient to kill him or herself. Some instances of euthanasia are relatively uncontroversial. Everyone now thinks this kind of euthanasia in the service of a eugenics program was clearly morally wrong. Advocates of active euthanasia typically argue that killing the patients in question is not worse than letting them die.

Advocates of voluntary euthanasia often claim that patients should have the right to do what they want with their own lives. Advocates of mercy killing argue that for patients who are in vegetative states with no prospect of recovery, letting them die prevents future needless and futile treatment efforts.

If they are suffering then killing them prevents further suffering. Advocates of physician-assisted suicide argue that a physician assisting a terminally ill or suffering patient is merely helping the patient who wishes to die with dignity. Critics of the euthanasia typically argue that killing is always wrong, that nonvoluntary or involuntary euthanasia violates patient rights, or that physician-assisted suicide violates an obligation to do no harm.

Killing vs. Commonsense morality usually thinks that letting a person die is not as bad as killing a person. We sometimes condemn letting an innocent person die and sometimes not, but we always condemn killing an innocent person. On the other hand, we let starving people in poor countries die without condemning ourselves for failing to save them, because we think they have no right to demand we prevent their deaths.

But if someone killed a neighbor or starving people we would think that wrong. Likewise, we would condemn a healthcare professional who kills a patient. But we might accept the healthcare professional who at patient and family request withholds artificial life support to allow a suffering, terminally ill patient to die.

The distinction between killing and letting die is controversial in healthcare because critics charge there is no proper moral basis for the distinction. They say that killing the above patient brings about the same end as letting the patient die. Others object to this and claim that the nature of the act of killing is different than letting die in ways that make it morally wrong.

However, this issue needs to be re-examined again after few years depending upon the evolution of the society with regard to providing health care to the disabled and public health sector with regard to providing health care to poor people.

The Supreme Court judgement to withhold decision on this sensitive issue is a first step towards a new era of health care in terminally ill patients.

The Judgment laid down is to preserve harmony within a society, when faced with a complex medical, social and legal dilemma. There is a need to enact a legislation to protect terminally ill patients and also medical practitioners caring for them as per the recommendation of Law Commission Report There is also an urgent need to invest in our health care system, so that poor people suffering from ill health can access free health care.

National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Indian J Med Res. Santosh K. Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. References 1. Lewy G. Assisted suicide in US and Europe. Dowbiggin I. A merciful end: The euthanasia movement in modern America. Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug vs.

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Lonnqvist J. The Oxford textbook of suicidology and suicide prevention. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Economic reasons often lead family members to persuade their elderly and sick relatives to take euthanasia.

Family members with a financial or emotional incentive to see the patient die would be likely to influence his decision. De Troyer made a 2, EUR donation to Life End Information Forum, an organization that Distelmans co-founded; he later carried out her request to die due to depression. In the end, euthanasia undermines social solidarity and authentic compassion. This is well portrayed in a Red Bull movie which shows children trying to persuade their sick mother to take a lethal injection.

This is especially relevant since those most affected by euthanasia are the vulnerable groups who are usually less able to exercise autonomous decisions, and they are more able to be influenced in their decision by their surroundings.

The arguments advocating for euthanasia are often framed in terms of money the society could save if it would allow killing of the sick and the elderly, instead of caring for them. Legalizing euthanasia puts them in increased danger of being killed instead of being treated and offered a second chance. When these patients receive appropriate treatment for depression, they usually abandon the wish to commit suicide.

Benign as its present authors and promoters doubtless generally are, such a classification would create in our society a new structure of radical inequality, with implications of the most sinister kind.

On the contrary, all the international law document recognize the right to life as one of the fundamental rights of the human person. This I will examine in the next article. All rights reserved. Human Dignity Curriculum Become a Member. Debating Death 1: Should liberal societies legalize euthanasia?