Euthanaisa
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Most people in North America die what may be called a bad death. One study found that “More often than not, patients died in pain, their desires concerning treatment neglected, after spending 10 days or more in an intensive care unit.”
The word Euthanasia originated from the Greek language: eu means “good” and thanatos means “death”. One meaning given to the word is “the intentional termination of life by another at the explicit request of the person who dies.” That is, the term euthanasia normally implies that the act must be initiated by the person who wishes to commit suicide. However, some people define euthanasia to include both voluntary and involuntary termination of life. Like so many moral/ethical/religious terms, “euthanasia” has many meanings. The result is mass confusion.
It is important to differentiate among a number of vaguely related terms:
Passive Euthanasia: Hastening the death of a person by altering some form of support and letting nature take its course. For example: Removing life support equipment (e.g. turning off a respirator) or
Stopping medical procedures, medications etc., or
Stopping food and water and allowing the person to dehydrate or starve to death.
Not delivering CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) and allowing a person, whose heart has stopped, to die.
Perhaps the most common form of passive euthanasia is to give a patient large doses of morphine to control pain, in spite of the likelihood that the pain-killer will suppress respiration and cause death earlier than it would otherwise have happened. Such doses of pain killers have a dual effect of relieving pain and hastening death. Administering such medication is regarded as ethical in most political jurisdictions and by most medical societies.
These procedures are performed on terminally ill, suffering persons so that natural death will occur sooner. It is also done on persons in a Persistent Vegetative State – individuals with massive brain damage who are in a coma from which they cannot possibly regain consciousness.
Active Euthanasia: This involves causing the death of a person through a direct action, in response to a request from