Voluntary Euthanasia

Question: Is Euthanasia Wrong?

Your answer must contain two parts

(i) Give a 500-750 word Reflection answering the following questions:

What do you believe?/What is your opinion?

I think that voluntary euthanasia should be an available option for humans. I think it’s inhumane to prolong ones suffering when quality of life has diminished to a point where death is preferable.

What about the terms/definitions? Are they clear? What kind of problems or ambiguities could arise here?

The main term ‘euthanasia’ is defined as the practice of ending a life prematurely in order to end pain and suffering. Voluntary euthanasia is carried out with the permission of the person whose life is taken; it’s typically performed when a person is suffering from a terminal illness or if health is declining rapidly and is in great pain.

Voluntary euthanasia is ambiguous as there are different methods that fall in this category such as active voluntary euthanasia (legal in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) when the patient brings about his or her own death with the assistance of a physician (the term assisted suicide is often used instead) and passive voluntary euthanasia when withholding or withdrawing measures necessary for sustaining life.

One problem that may arise is if we were to ask whether the person’s quality of life is unbearable enough to have the right to die, perhaps someone suffering from a disease such as Multiple Sclerosis or Alzheimer’s and would like to end one’s life before disease progresses; it’s assumed that an assessment would be made before the procedure. The terms above are clear enough for the reader to adopt and discern from the terminologies.

Why do you hold this opinion? What are your main reasons for thinking this way?...

... middle of paper ...

...stem from disease, infection, epidemics such as HIV or AIDS that can be spread, if the individual is not handled properly it may increase the risk of others being affected by the disease, consequently this would harm more people.

For the third claim, patients diagnosed with terminal illnesses have close to a zero percent chance of surviving or leading a normal life, if the patient is an organ donator and the organs are healthy, it may save up several lives, A person in a vegative state for example can take up hospital beds for years demonstrates

Do you think your reasons are good ones? Could you make your argument stronger?

(ii) A standardised argument which draws on your answers to Part (i). You should include:

Conclusion

Premises, sub-premises (if necessary), and implicit premises (if necessary)

Whether premises and sub-premises are linked and convergent.