Euthanasia
What effect does this have on our world?
Pros/Causes/Benefits
- It provides a way to relieve extreme pain
- Frees up medical funds to help other people
- Die in peace
- It provides a way of relief when a person's quality of life is low
- It is another case of freedom of choice
Cons/Effects/Dangers
- Euthanasia devalues human life
- Euthanasia can become a means of health care cost containment
- Physicians and other medical care people should not be involved in directly causing death
- There is a "slippery slope" effect that has occurred where euthanasia has been first been legalized for only
the terminally ill and later laws are changed to allow it for other people or to be done non-voluntarily. - It can be hard for families to let go.
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Links
History
The first recorded use of the word euthanasia was by Suetonius, a Roman historian, in his De Vita Caesarum--Divus Augustus (The Lives of the Caesars--The Deified Augustus) to describe the death of Augustus Caesar:"...while he was asking some newcomers from the city about the daughter of Drusus, who was ill, he suddenly passed away as he was kissing Livia, uttering these last words: "Live mindful of our wedlock, Livia, and farewell," thus blessed with an easy death and such a one as he had always longed for. For almost always, on hearing that anyone had died swiftly and painlessly, he prayed that he and his might have a like euthanasia, for that was the term he was wont to use. "
Final Thoughts
That it can be used for population control and a way of punishment. I have read The Giver recently and this was one of the topics found in the book. I think Euthanasia should be used in our world as a way to relieve someone's pain and not just end it as a punishment.