Euthanasia in the USA

Résumé du document

In recent years, Euthanasia has become a very heated debate. It is a Greek word that means "easy death" but the controversy surrounding it is just the opposite. Whether the issue is refusing prolonged life mechanically, assisting suicide, or active euthanasia, we eventually confront our society's fears toward death itself. Above others, our culture breeds fear and dread of aging and dying. It is not easy for most of the western world to see death as an inevitable part of life. However, the issues that surround euthanasia are not only about death, they are about ones liberty, right to privacy and control over his or her own body. So, the question remains: Who has the right?...

Extraits

[...] Can the debate over legalization of Euthanasia be compared to the debate over legalizing abortion? Wasn't the main reason for legalizing abortion because it was being done anyway. People still had access to abortion, it was just being done terribly. We're in exactly the same situation today. People do have access to assisted suicide, it's just being done poorly. I believe, that if in this great country, we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness then why shouldn't a person have the right to control the conditions of their death as much as they have the right to control the conditions of their living. [...]

[...] Euthanasia in the USA In recent years, Euthanasia has become a very heated debate. It is a Greek word that means "easy death" but the controversy surrounding it is just the opposite. Whether the issue is refusing prolonged life mechanically, assisting suicide, or active euthanasia, we eventually confront our society's fears toward death itself. Above others, our culture breeds fear and dread of aging and dying. It is not easy for most of the western world to see death as an inevitable part of life. [...]

[...] The justices unanimously ruled that this act was necessary to respect Quinlan's right to privacy.5 Some medical ethicists warned then that the ruling was the beginning of a trend--the slippery slope--which could lead to decisions to end a person's life being made by third parties not only on the basis of medical condition but also on such considerations as age, economic status, or even ethnicity In 1990, the Supreme Court case, Cruzan v. Missouri, recognized the principle that a person has a constitutionally protected right to refuse unwanted medical treatment. In 1983, Nancy Beth Cruzan lapsed into an irreversible coma from an auto accident. Before the accident, she had said several times that if she were faced with life as a "vegetable," she would not want to live. Her parents went to court in 1987 to force the hospital to remove the tube by which she was being given nutrition and water. [...]

[...] Meanwhile, after protracted legal wrangling, the parents of Nancy Cruzan, who has been in a coma for seven years, are allowed to remove her feeding tube. Friends and co-workers testify in court that she would not have wanted to live. 1991- Hemlock Society founder Derek Humphry first publishes "Final Exit." The controversial suicide "how-to" book later becomes a national best seller. 1994- Voters in Oregon pass a referendum making it the only state in the country that allows doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs for terminally ill patients. [...]

[...] Like the decision of whether or not to have an abortion, the decision how and when to die is one of "the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime," a choice "central to personal dignity and autonomy."11 On April in the case of Vacco v. Quill, the U.S. Appeals Court for the Second Circuit in New York struck down that state's law making it illegal for doctors to help terminally ill people end their own lives. [...]