4.7 - euthanasia

• what is euthanasia?


  a gentle, easy death to someone suffering from a painful, terminal disease with a poor quality of life
• types of euthanasia

  • assisted suicide - providing a seriously ill person with the means to commit suicide
  • voluntary euthanasia - ending a life painlessly when a person in great pain asks for death
  • non-voluntary euthanasia - ending a life painlessly when they are unable to ask, valid reason to do so
  • active euthanasia - a doctor performing deliberate action to painlessly end a life
  • passive euthanasia - when medical treatment is deliberately not given
• catholics


  ban any type of euthanasia (modern medicine means that passive euthanasia is not wrong)

  • sanctity of life
  • euthanasia is murder which is forbidden
  • switching of life support is accepting what god has decided
  • acceptable to not give extraordinary treatment as it affects dignity of dying
• evangelicals


  all euthanasia is wrong (including passive euthanasia)

  • switching off life support is humans ending life, not god
  • life is created by god so god chooses when we die
  • form of murder
• liberals


  some agree in certain circumstances - controlling what the doctors do to you because you have a right (living wills)
• humanist/athiest attitudes


  against euthanasia

  • doubt as to whether it is what the person really wants
  • may not be terminally ill (remission - cure gets found)
  • role of doctors to save lives, not end them
  • change of mind
  • hard to tell where line is for who does/doesn't get euthanasia

  for euthanasia:

  • advances in medicine help keep people alive when quality of life is poor
  • life support machines can be classed as euthanasia
  • if they can switch of life support, they can painlessly end suffering
• christian responses to those that are dying

  go to a hospice which give palliative care (improves quality of life)