Euthanasia: Moral and Philosophical Views

Paper Summary:

Dan Brock, in his article "Voluntary Active Euthanasia: An Overview and Defense", claims that the moral difference is clear between physician-assisted suicide and between voluntary active euthanasia - in physician-assisted suicide the patient kills his or herself while in voluntary active euthanasia the physician is responsible for the killing. This paper evaluates the validity of Brock's arguments and compares them to those in Daniel Callahan's article "When Self Determination Runs Amok". The paper then discusses whether voluntary active euthanasia should be legalized. The paper provides facts about Oregon (the only state where physician assisted suicide is legal). The paper provides the pluses and minuses of VAE (voluntary active euthanasia), the effects of legalizing VAE and offers an opinion of when VAE is morally permissible.

From the Paper:

"According to the state of Oregon, physician-assisted suicide is legal and is legal under the U.S. Constitution also. Physician-assisted suicide may be legal in Oregon, but it has been utilized less than 50 times in a state that has a population of approximately 3.4 million people. There are far more than 50 terminally patients in the state of Oregon. This shows that physician-assisted suicide is not a way for people to commit suicides legally, it is a way for the terminally ill(less than 6 months to live) to have their lives ended legally, with the assistance of someone else. This is definitely morally permissible because they are no people harmed in this act. In this act, the physician is only legally supplying the lethal dose, and the patient is committing the final act. The fact that less than 50 people have had physician-assisted suicide shows me that people that originally want physician-assisted suicide cannot bring themselves to do it themselves, or change their mind during their sickness. This leads me to think that ending one's own life is one of the hardest things a person can do, and typically most would prefer to have someone else that is qualified, such as a physician, perform this action."

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• Term Paper # 75176 : "Euthanasia, Philosophy and Ethics"
• Persuasive Essay # 113983 : "Robert Latimer"

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