Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Euthanasia
- Types
- Voluntary
- The patient asks a friend/ doctor to
help them die painlessly with dignity
- Also known as 'mercy killing' or 'assisted suicide'
- Non- Voluntary
- When a patient's life is ended because it is felt
that to keep them alive is to make them suffer
- Without consent of the patient (e.g. he/she is in a coma)
- Active
- The ending of a patient's life deliberately (e.g. fatal injection)
- Passive
- Withdrawing/ withholding medical treatment
- Definitions
- Quality of life: measurement of how fulfilled your life is
- Self determination= the right to make decisions for oneself in life
- UK law
- Illegal in UK
- Expections
- Powerful painkiller, even if a secondary
effect is the patient will die sooner
- Withdrawal of medical treatment, if recovery is not possible
- Legal in Netherlands and Switerland
- Arguements for
- Self dermination
- Poor quality of life
- Inhumane to allow them it suffer
- People have the right to end their lives with dignity
- Some people have no chance of survival
- Their family are suffering by seeing them in pain
- Arguments against
- Some elerly and disabled might feel pressure to be
euthanaised because they are a burden ti their families
- Harold Shipman murdered over 250 people in England- making it legal could lead to similar advances
- Normal people could abuse the
euthanasia if they wanted inheritamce
- Unhappy or depressed people may take the option of Euthanasia instead of getting help
- Hospices
- Care for medical, emotional, social and spiritual needs
- Allow people to die with dignity
- If enough spaces for those who wished to
you there, euthanasia would not be needed