Euthanasia

Euthanasia Let’s start with the definition of Euthanasia. It is an act of killing or permitting the death of another in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy. This definition can be further broken down to passive or active euthanasia. Passive euthanasia involves not doing something to prevent a death, allowing someone to die. Active euthanasia involves taking deliberate action to cause a death. It is considered voluntary if the patient or that …

…respirator and allow them to die is morally acceptable. It is also acceptable to give the patient morphine at this time to minimize the patient’s feeling of suffocation. However, if a doctor were to go one step further, and give that same patient potassium chloride to stop the heart and speed up the dying process, he would be practicing active euthanasia, physician assisted death, which is not acceptable by most in today’s standards.