Euthanasia

Meagan Como

Period 7

Euthanasia

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Webster's definition of euthanasia is the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy. After this concept of healing pain with death has been brought about there has been a lot of controversy on the issue.

The Netherlands was the first country to legalize euthanasia as well as doctor assisted suicide. For euthanasia to be legally conducted doctors have to determine whether the pain the person is going through is unbearable as well as making sure their is no room for their patients case for improvement. Kids sixteen through eighteen must involve their parents but do not have to have their consent to have a euthanasia. Kids under sixteen must however have their parents consent.

If decided to have a euthanasia one must have a right to die consent form filled out or even a paper saying you wouldn't like to live any more. Any written paper or contract, written before the euthanasia, is legally valid. The doctor you currently have must also fill out several forms stating that you are terminal and must have a second doctor's signature agreeing with his statement.

Yet even with these laws some people still do not agree with it. Some people feel that euthanasia goes against there religion or is just straight out immoral. Some activists'

feel that by passing these laws it encourages people to end there lives when confronted with suffering.

However there are two sides to every disagreement. A lot of people agree with euthanasia. I myself am one of them. Three out of every four people who are facing death experience severe pain and more then half die in pain. A report by the Institute of Medicine found out that the number one fear of people who are dying is dying in

excruciating pain. They also found last year that patients in pain were more likely to consider euthanasia.

In fact some of the best physicians do not have the knowledge or skills to manage severe pain. Only four of the one hundred and twenty six medical schools require students to take just one course on dying and people in pain. The leading fifty medical books barley even mention the subject of death and the pain included in it.

"Reliving suffering does not mean necessarily mean death, you should never aim to kill a person that's the bottom line, said Bert Droenbos, chairman of the anti-euthanasia group Cry for Life. I highly doubt that Bert Droenbos has ever been in excruciating pain while lying on his death bed helpless, not being able to do anything about it.

Even if we do try to help some of these victims most doctors can only spend ten to fifteen