Analysis Of Euthanasia

Film Essay Assignment
Introduction
For this film essay assignment, I chose to watch an episode of Grey’s Anatomy that concerned physician assisted suicide. As a future nurse, these are situations that I may encounter one day and I believe it to be important to understand the different sides of the argument as well as develop my own opinion. In this essay, I will examine whether or not it is more humane to assist someone with death/suicide when there is no hope for recovery. Euthanasia is defined in several ways by an assortment of people, but the definition that I will use is the definition of euthanasia that is derived from the Greek language meaning, “merciful, easy, painless death” (Hooker 1). An example of this would be physician assisted suicide for terminally ill patients as the lethal injections would kill a person without causing additional stress

Active euthanasia is where someone kills another person out of concern for that person’s well-being. However, passive euthanasia is where one passes by opportunities to prevent the death of another out of concern for that person. There are also three subcategories of each these two categories: voluntary, non-voluntary, and involuntary. Voluntary euthanasia is where a person asks you to allow them to succumb to death under adverse conditions, non-voluntary euthanasia would be where a person did not give advance directives on how to handle adverse situations so another person has to make the difficult decision, and involuntary euthanasia is where a person expresses a desire not to die under any circumstance and is then killed. Each of these three subcategories can apply to either active or passive euthanasia. In Grey’s Anatomy, one would categorize this situation as voluntary, active euthanasia because the patient requested assistance in dying and it requires the physician to actively aid in the patient’s death (Hooker 1,