EUTHANASIA.
The issue of euthanasia brings many moral and ethical questions to mind. Some writers are in favor of and some oppose euthanasia. This review of writers' opinions on the subject of euthanasia presents the arguments of some advocates and opponents. Some reasons writers propose to justify euthanasia is that it ends the patient's suffering, that patients have rights regarding their life, and the pain their family goes through. On the other hand, some reasons writers give for opposing euthanasia include: patients are incapable of making that decision, it's immoral, and it conflicts with the doctors' role as healers.
One reason some writers justify euthanasia is that it ends the patient's suffering. As Timothy M. Quill said in his essay, "suffering can be lessened to some extent, but in no way eliminated or made benign by the careful intervention of a competent, caring physician". When Diane, a patient with acute leukemia expressed her desire to die without suffering Quill acted in his patient's best interest, "Knowing of her desire for independence and her decision to stay in control, I thought this request made perfect sense. Terminal patients are suffering with no hope for living a normal life. They want to spend their last days with their families, not in a hospital bed. When Barbara Huttman helped one of her terminal patients die she asked herself, "Was all this misery and suffering supposed to be building character.Did we really believe that we had the right to force life on a suffering man who had begged for the right to die?" Ending patient's suffering is one of the main reasons some favor euthanasia. McIver presents good points in his essay regarding this very idea. Those include that the doctor must always act in the patient's best interests, even if sometimes that means letting the patient die to end his or her suffering, when then it becomes the doctor's obligation to provide their assistance.
