Euthanasia There are sets of beliefs, ideals, and norms, and these are the standards that human beings tend to base their opinions on, whether they be past or present. We, however, live in the modern world. Our ethics are inheritance of the past as well as the present. We take what we have learned from ancestors, friends, family and literature and form our own beliefs and meanings of life. This struggle is now obvious in the contemporary discussions of euthanasia. Euthanasia comes from the Greek word "Thanatos" meaning death and the prefix "eu" meaning easy or good (Russell 94). Thus, "eu- Thanatos" means easy or good death. "Euthanasia occurs when at least two people are involved and one of those persons dies because the other person intends that person to die and acts in such a way as to bring about the outcome." (Corr 489) There are different types of Euthanasia present today: active or physician assisted suicide, passive voluntary euthanasia and involuntary euthanasia. "Passive voluntary euthanasia," is where a conscious, mentally competent person, usually with a severe physical ailment, loses the will to live. Many have said that keeping them alive is just prolonging their death, which in turn can be considered a form of cruel and unusual punishment. They may ask that life support equipment be disconnected so that they can die quickly, painlessly, and with dignity. The second type, "active voluntary euthanasia," is done when terminally ill patients' are suffering and want natural death to occur sooner and when a patient is in persistent vegetative state (PVS) and the family chooses to let nature take it course. An example of this is removing life support, stopping medical procedures, not administering CPR to ... ... middle of paper ... ...the perspective of the family member who has to watch their own flesh and blood suffer. As William Shakespeare and Hamlet once said: O! that this too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew; Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! WORKS CITED Corr, Charles A. Death and Dying Life and Living. California: Wadsworth, 2000. "Euthanasia and Physician Assissted Suicide." http://www.religioustolerance.org/euthanas.htm Heifetz, Milton D. and Charles Mangel. The Right to Die. Toronto: Longman Canada Limited, 1975. Levine, Carol. "Is Physician-Assisted Suicide Ethical?" Guilford: The Dushkin Publishing Group Inc.,1991. Moroney, Catherine. "Three Choices for Death." America 21 November 1992. Russell, Ruth. Freedom to Die. New York: Human Sciences Press, 1977.