Euthanasia
Public opinion for euthanasia and doctor assisted suicide has always
been mixed. A poll that was taken by the Gallup Organization in Canada
during July 1995 proves that people are starting to see the advantages of
euthanasia. The first question that was asked was:
"When a person has an incurable disease that is immediately life
threatening and causes that person to experience great suffering, do you,
or do you not think that competent doctors should be allowed by law to end
the patient's life through mercy killing, if the patient has made a
formal request in writing?"
It is proven in this first question that the general public believes that
cases of great pain and suffering deserve the right to choose euthanasia as
an option to stop the pain. Three quarters of the people surveyed believed
that the choice should be given to the patient.
The second question was about non-immediate life threatening cases:
"When a person has an incurable disease that is not
immediately life-threatening but causes that person to experience
great suffering, do you, or do you not think that competent doctors should
be allowed by law to end the patient's life through mercy killing, if the
patient has made a formal request in writing?"
As you can see, when a case is not immediately life threatening, the
general publics answer is mixed. The people who answered no may be thinking
of treatment that has not been tried yet or treatment that may come in the
future due to new technologies. Medical Advancements: During the last 20
years, technological advancement has increased more than the advancement of
the whole time of man before that. People that have the no opinion on
euthanasia may be thinking that the person may be saved by a sudden medical
advancement. It would be terrible for a member of your family to take a
lethal dose of drugs, given to them by a doctor, to find the next day while
reading a recent medical journal that a cure had been found a few days
before. How would you feel?
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