Euthanasia Should Not Be Legal

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Euthanasia is a word that comes from ancient Greece and it refers to “good death”. In the modern societies euthanasia is defined as taking away people’s lives who suffer from an incurable disease. They usually go through this process by painlessness ways to avoid the greatest pains that occurs from the disease. A huge number of countries in the World are against euthanasia and any specific type of it. One of the most important things being discussed nowadays is whether euthanasia should be legalized or not. This essay will focus on comparing positive and negative aspects of euthanasia in order to answer to the question whether euthanasia should be legal or not. There exist three different types of euthanasia: active, passive and voluntary. Active euthanasia refers to the process of injection of painkillers and sleeping pills in order to reduce the time of suffering of a patient by making his death less painful. On the other side, voluntary euthanasia refers to the case of the conscientious patient, who voluntarily demands from the doctor to give up on treatments. In this case the patient is conscious that he will die soon and regardless that stops the treatments. In my discussion related to whether euthanasia should be legalized or not I will refer only to active and voluntary euthanasia arguments. There are many negative aspects of legalizing euthanasia. One of the important negative factors would be the power that the doctor has in deciding about the patient’s life. As it is written in the book “A natural law ethics approach”, legalizing applications of euthanasia’s forms are attributing the doctors the role of God (Paterson 28-29). As a result, it becomes doctor’s decision for the patient, for h... ... middle of paper ... ...e most important prize that the God gave us, and no matter how long we are going to live, no matter in what conditions we’ll live, we have to live it to the end. Works Cited 1. “The basic definitions.” Types of euthanasia. 20 Nov. 2001. http://www.pregnantpause.org/euth/types.htm. Web. 12 Dec. 2010 2. Paterson, Craig. A natural law ethics approach. Burlington,Vermont: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. 28-29. Print. 3. “Religion and Spirituality.” Death with Dignity National Center. N.p., 2007. http://www.deathwithdignity.org/historyfacts/religion.as. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. 4. O’Reilly, Kevin. “Assisted-suicide statute challenged by 2 Connecticut doctors.” Discovery Institute (2009). Print 5. Young, Robert. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2010. N. pag. University of Stanford. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/euthanasia-voluntary/. Web. 10 Dec. 2010.

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