Also called mercy killing. The act of putting to death painlessly or allowing to die, as by withholding extreme medical measures, a person or animal suffering from an incurable, esp. a painful, disease or condition. http://www.dictionary.com/
It is legal in some nations, while in others it may be criminalized. Euthanasia is a controversial issue because of conflicting moral feelings both for the individual and between different cultures, ethnicities, religions and other groups. The subject is explored by the mass media, authors, film makers and philosophers, and is the source of ongoing debate and emotion.
- Active Euthanasia
Euthanasia is the practice of terminating the life of a person or animal in a presumably painless or minimally painful way, usually by lethal injection.
- Passive Euthanasia
Passive euthanasia is withholding common treatments (such as antibiotics, drugs, or surgery) or giving a medication (such as morphine) to relieve pain, knowing that it may also result in death (principle of double effect). Passive euthanasia is currently the most accepted form as it is currently common practice in most hospitals.
- Non-agressive Euthanasia
Non-aggressive Euthanasia is the practice of withdrawing life support and is more controversial.
- Agressive Euthanasia
Aggressive Euthanasia is using lethal substances or force to kill and is the most controversial means.
- Involuntary Euthanasia
Involuntary Euthanasia is euthanasia against someone’s will and equates to murder. This kind of euthanasia is almost always considered wrong by both sides and is rarely debated.
- Non-voluntary Euthanasia
Non-voluntary Euthanasia is when the person is not competent to or unable to make a decision and it is thus left to a proxy like in the Terri Schiavo case. This is highly controversial, especially because multiple proxies may claim the authority to decide for the patient.
- Voluntary Euthanasia
Voluntary Euthanasia is euthanasia with the person’s direct consent, but is still controversial.
Why is Euthanasia good or bad? Justification... YES or NO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia
Pro-Choice
-Supporting or advocating legalized abortion
-Favouring or supporting the legal right of women and girls to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy to term
-Describes the political and ethical view that a woman should have complete control over her fertility and pregnancy.
Pro-Life
-Opposed to legalized abortion; right-to-life
-Advocating full legal protection of human embryos or fetuses, especially by opposing legalized abortion
Ritual Suicide
-act of suicide motivated by a religious, spiritual, or traditional ritual
-Hindu custom:
- An extreme interpretation of Hindu custom historically practiced, mostly in the 2nd millennium, was self-immolation by a widow as an assurance that she will be with her husband for the next life.
-Other rituals of self-immolation or self-starvation were used by Hindu, Jain and Buddhist monks for religious or philosophical purposes, or as a form of extreme non-violent protest.
-China:
- some groups would practice suicide for similar reasons.
-Japan:
- rituals of suicide like seppuku were practiced
Seppuku
- (hara-kiri ) [Jap.,=belly-cutting]
- the traditional Japanese form of honorable suicide
-practiced by the Japanese feudal warrior class in order to avoid falling into enemy hands
-Around 1500, it became a privileged alternative to execution, granted to daimyo and samurai guilty of disloyalty to the emperor.
-The condemned man received a jeweled dagger from the emperor. He selected as his second a faithful friend, received official witnesses, and plunged the dagger into the left side of his abdomen, drew it across to the right, and made a slight cut upward; his second then beheaded him with one stroke of a sword, and the dagger was returned to the emperor.-Around 1700, it became permissible to go through a semblance of disembowelment prior to beheading.
-Voluntary hara-kiri was resorted to after a private misfortune, out of loyalty to a dead master, or to protest the conduct of a living superior.
http://www.answers.com/topic/seppuku-1
Is SUICIDE justified? When is suicide being ACCEPTED?
Jack Kevorkian/Suicide Machine
- Early On
-His fascination with death began with a desire to extend life.
-He argued for anesthetizing death row inmates before execution, if they consented, for the purpose of organ harvesting and medical experiments. This campaign was undercut by a swing at that time in the public opinion against capital punishment.
-He earned the nickname "Dr. Death" when he did research on the eyes of dying patients. He would photograph the retinas of their eyes at the exact moment of death and found that the corneas become invisible at this moment. He did this in hope of helping doctors distinguish between death and comas.
- 1970s
-Kevorkian served as a pathologist at hospitals in Michigan and California.
-Found it difficult to get support for his position on anesthetized organ donation for death row inmates.
-His version of euthanasia was even rejected by the Hemlock Society for being to susceptible to abuse.
- The Suicide Machine
-In the late 80s Kevorkian built a machine that helped people to commit suicide by giving them a narcotic followed by a lethal dose of potassium chloride.
-This machine enables disabled suicide candidates to kill themselves at the mere touch of a button.
- Dr. Death's Advertising Tactics
-His search for a first patient began when he started placing ads in the newspaper classified section
-Example Business Card: Jack Kevorkian, MD...Bioethics...Special Death Counseling. By Appointment Only.
-One rejected "patient" was a woman with multiple sclerosis who, he explained, was "not a suitable candidate for the first use of his death machine" because her situation wouldn't garner the favorable coverage he needed for the "initial event".
-1990- 1st client was Jane Adkins, a 54-year-old Alzheimer's patient, from Portland Oregon. Since then he has helped over 130 people kill themselves.
- Crossing the Line
-In 1998 Kevorkian stepped outside of the boundaries of passive euthanasia to active euthanasia when he gave a man lethal injection, rather than simply providing the means for the man to kill himself.
-He videotaped this and it was aired on CBS's Sixty Minutes. He dared prosecutors to charge him with murder.
-In 1999 prosecutors found him guilty of murder and sentenced him 10 to 25 years in prison.
- Is Jack Kevorkian Qualified to Deal With Depressed and Dying People?
* His professional experience has been primarily in the field of pathology (dealing with death bodies and body parts)
* With the exception of his residency and his military service in the 1950s, he has no clinical experience with live patients
*He has zero training or expertise in diagnosing or treating depression, and is completely lacking in any education or expertise in the fields of internal medicine, geriatrics, psychiatry, and neurology
*He has admitted that he is not qualified to practice medicine, even as a general practitioner. However, he has stated that the decision about who is worthy to use his death machine is based on his medical expertise.
*He does not have a license to practice medicine. His Michigan license was suspended in 1991 and his California license was suspended in 1993.
-Jack Kevorkian has constantly violated most of the rules and stands he publicly claims to follow
(Data taken from June 1990 (total= 47 suicides)
-Kevorkian says that those who qualify for his help suffer from afflictions that are incurable or cannot be treated without intolerable side effects
-60 % of his patients were not terminal. At least 17 could have lived indefinitely and, in 13 cases the people had no complaints of pain
-Autopsies of at least 3 of his suicides revealed no disease at all
-Kevorkian says that it is always necessary to bring in a psychiatrist because a person's "mental state is of paramount importance"
-In 19 cases Kevorkian did not contact psychiatrists
-In 5 of those 19 cases the person who dies had a history with depression
- Supporters of Physician Assisted Suicide Who Disagree With Jack Kevorkian
There are many people who support Euthanasia but not the practices of Jack Kevorkian. For Kevorkian, each case is handled differently. There is no consistency and it seems as if he is randomly picking who gets to die that day/week/month. in some cases he would follow his rules yet in others they were completely disregarded.
http://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/death02/euthan/Jack%20Kevorkian.htm
Terri Schiaro
- The Terri Schiavo Case - http://reports.tbo.com/reports/schiavo/
PINELLAS PARK - Terri Schiavo suffered heart failure in 1990, when she was 26 years old, lapsing into a persistent vegetative state. For years, Michael Schiavo, her husband, fought to have the feeding tube keeping his wife alive, removed. He said his wife told him she would not want to live like this. Schiavo's parents wanted their daughter to remain alive. The battle involved the courts, the Florida Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush. Schiavo died at on March 31, 2005 at the Pinellas Park hospice where she lay for years while her husband and her parents fought over her fate in the nation's most bitter - and most heavily litigated - right-to-die dispute.