ASSISTED SUICIDE (EUTHANASIA)

Sunday 28 October 2012

Poster about
euthanasia: "60 000 RM costs a
hereditary defective" ("60
000 RM kostet dieser Erbkranke"),
a poster from NSDAP race politic
office

"Here you are also carrying." Nazi 60 000 RM costs a hereditary defective.
propaganda for euthanasia, 1939.

http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/eu/3R/propaganda-2wk-ENGL.html

http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/eu/3R/propaganda-2wk-ENGL.html
Bundesarchiv Bild 152-04-28, Heilanstalt Schönbrunn, Kinder (Bundesarchiv 152-04-28, Schonbrunn "Children Sanatorium")

Action T4 (German: Aktion T4) was the name used after World War II for the Euthanasia Program in Nazi Germany officially spanning September 1939until August 1941 but continued unofficiallyuntil the demise of the Nazi regime in 1945,during which physicians killed thousands of people specified in Hitler's secret memo of September 1, 1939, as suffering patients "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination".

Euthanasia Program (Action T4) officially started in September 1939. Research based on files that were recovered after 1990 gives a figure of at least 200,000 physically or mentally handicapped people that were killed by medication, starvation, or in the gas chambers between 1939 and 1945.

The T4 program is thought to have developed from the Nazi Party's policy of "racial hygiene", the belief that the German people needed to be "cleansed" of "racially unsound" elements, which included people with disabilities. According to this view, the euthanasia program represents an evolution in policy toward the later Holocaust of the Jews of Europe.

Action T4 was described as euthanasia by some of the officials responsible for carrying the program out. At the Nuremberg trials the program was determined to be illegal and punishable as murder under the law, even if it was called euthanasia, and moreover the Nuremberg Tribunal concluded that under the German law, euthanasia as such was illegal and punishable as murder, and also was a war crime and a crime against humanity.

Saturday 27 October 2012

Classification of euthanasia

In this post I want to explain to you how euthanasia is dived, classification of euthanasia and what the difference is.

Euthanasia may be classified according to whether a person gives informed consent into three types: voluntary, non-voluntary and involuntary.

Voluntary Euthanasia refers to the action taken by the physician and the patient, who both agree (with informed consent) to end the patient's life.

Involuntary Euthanasia refers to a third party taking a patient's life without the informed consent of the patient. This is commonly practiced in veterinary medicine when animals are "put down" or "put to sleep." In modern medicine, it could conceivably be applied to the act of taking a terminally ill, suffering patient's life who has lost all mental capacity to make his/her own decisions.

Also Known As: physician-assisted death, physician-assisted suicide, mercy killing

Indirect-Providing treatment (usually to reduce pain) that has the foreseeable side effect of causing the patient to die sooner. The patient dies sooner as a side effect of giving a medical treatment given to relieve pain or improve end-of-life symptoms. Indirect or passive euthanasia are not prohibited in most countries, while direct or active euthanasia is prohibited; these are considered by some to be incorrect terms because they are not really types of euthanasia.

Passive-Involves withdrawing or withholding life-prolonging medical treatment with the intention to hasten death in the patient's interests because of their expected negative quality of life.

Distinguishing Passive from Active Euthanasia

Passive euthanasia is letting someone die.

Active euthanasia is doing something that kills them.

This distinction between active and passive euthanasia is thought to be crucial for medical ethics. The idea is that it is permissible, at least in some cases, to withhold treatment and allow a patient to die, but it is never permissible to take any direct action designed to kill the patient.

Non-Voluntary- This is where the person is unable to ask for euthanasia (perhaps they are unconscious or otherwise unable to communicate), or to make a meaningful choice between living and dying and an appropriate person takes the decision on their behalf, perhaps in accordance with their living will, or previously expressed wishes.

Situations in which the person cannot make a decision or cannot make their wishes known, includes cases where:

The person is in a coma.

The person is too young (e.g. a very young baby).

The person is senile.

The person is mentally retarded to a very severe extent.

The person is severely brain damaged.

The person is mentally disturbed in such a way that they should be protected from themselves.

Friday 26 October 2012

attitude of the world towards euthanasia

And now I want to tell you more specifically where euthanasia is prohibited or allowed. i want to start from North America.

American’s Law Encyclopedia states that "a 'mercy killing' or euthanasia is generally considered to be a criminal homicide" and is normally used as a synonym of homicide committed at a request made by the patient.

Canada. Suicide is not a crime but physician-assisted suicide is illegal. There are a lot of cases which are dealing with passive and active euthanasia in Canada. However, people like Francine Lalonde (MP) promised to legalize assisted suicide in Canada by private bills like Bill C-407.

USA. At first look, it looks like euthanasia is prohibited in all states of The USA. However, there are some exceptions. For example, assisted suicide or Physician aid-in-dying (PAD) is legal in the states of Washington, Oregon, and Montana.

Mexico. Passive euthanasia is legal in Mexico City and in two states: Aguascalientes and Michoacán. Active euthanasia is illegal, because General Health Law of Mexico still defines euthanasia as mercy homicide.

South America. There is only one country where euthanasia is legalized in Latin America. It is Colombia. In Colombia, euthanasia became permissible in 1997 when the highest judicial body, the Constitutional Court, ruled 6-3 that an individual may choose to end his life and that doctors can't be prosecuted for their role in helping. Euthanasia is illegal in all other countries of South America.
Europe.

There are only three countries in Europe where euthanasia is legal Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. In 2002, the Netherlands passed a law legalizing euthanasia including physician assisted suicide. The Belgian parliament legalized euthanasia in September 2002. The country's parliament passed a bill legalizing euthanasia on 20 February 2008. However, there is one more country with not clear status regarding euthanasia. It is Switzerland. Swiss penal code, considers assisted suicide a crime if and only if the motive is selfish.

Africa, Asia, Australia.

Euthanasia is forbidden in countries of Africa, Asia, and Australia.

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Religious look on euthanasia

Religious look on euthanasia .
In this part I want to show you euthanasia views of different religious.
As the first religion I had chosen Buddhism.
Most Buddhists are against euthanasia, because two reasons: avoiding harm and karma.
1.Avoiding harm. Buddhism places great stress on non-harm, and on avoiding the ending of life. The reference is to life - any life - so the intentional ending of life seems against Buddhist teaching and voluntary euthanasia should be forbidden. Certain codes of Buddhist monastic law explicitly forbid it.
2. Karma. Buddhists regard death as a transition. The deceased person will be reborn to a new life, whose quality will be the result of their karma.
Christian and Judaism view.
Christians and Jewry are against euthanasia. The arguments are usually based on the beliefs that life is given by God, and that human beings are made in God's image. Christian church regards euthanasia as morally wrong. It has always taught the absolute and unchanging value of the commandment "You shall not kill". The Jewish tradition regards the preservation of human life as one of its supreme moral values and forbids doing anything that might shorten life. However, it does not require doctors to make dying last longer than it naturally would. Jewish law forbids active euthanasia and regards it as murder. There are no exceptions to this rule and it makes no difference if the person concerned wants to die. It is wrong to shorten a life even if it would end very soon, because every moment of human life is considered equal in value to many years of life. So even if a person is a goses (this word means someone who has started to die and will die within 72 hours), any action that might hasten their death - for example closing the eyes or moving a limb - is prohibited.
Euthanasia in Islam.
Muslims are against euthanasia. They believe that all human life is sacred because it is given by Allah, and that Allah chooses how long each person will live. Human beings should not interfere in this. Many devout Muslims believe that Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders represent a soft form of euthanasia which is strictly forbidden in Islam. Muslims cannot kill, or be complicit in the killing of another, except in the interests of justice.
Hindu.
There are several Hindu points of view on euthanasia.
Most Hindus would say that a doctor should not accept a patient's request for euthanasia since this will cause the soul and body to be separated at an unnatural time. The result will damage the karma of both doctor and patient.
Other Hindus believe that euthanasia cannot be allowed because it breaches the teaching of ahimsa (doing no harm).
However, some Hindus say that by helping to end a painful life a person is performing a good deed and so fulfilling their moral obligations.

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Introdaction

In this introduction I shall explain to you what is euthanasia, where it comes from and where it is allowed or prohibited.

Euthanasia or assisted suicide (from the Greek means “good death”). According to Med lexicon’s dictionary: Euthanasia is:
1. "A quiet, painless death." or 2. "The intentional putting to death of a person with an incurable or painful disease intended as an act of mercy." Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering. In many cases, it is carried out at the person's request but there are times when they may be too ill and the decision is made by relatives, medics or, in some instances, the courts.

Where does euthanasia came from?

The first recorded use of the word euthanasia was by Suetonius, a Roman historian, in his De Vita Caesarum--Divus Augustus (The Lives of the Caesars--The Deified Augustus) to describe the death of Augustus Caesar. In ancient Greece, suicide of the patient who was suffering extreme pain and had an incurable terminal illness was made easy and for this reason, the physician gave medicine (a poisoned drink) to him. Plato wrote: "Mentally and physically ill persons should be left to death; they do not have the right to live." Also, in Sparta, it was the common practice for each newborn male child to be examined for signs of disability or sickliness which, if found, led to his death. This practice was regarded as a way to protect the society from unnecessary burden, or as a way to 'save' the person from the burden of existence.

Where is it allowed or prohibited?

As of 2012, euthanasia was legal in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In some other countries, such as Switzerland and Colombia, helping someone to die was legal under certain circumstances. In the United States, assisted suicide was legal only in the states of Washington, Oregon and Montana. Although euthanasia is illegal in many places, it often is legal for the treatment of a terminally ill patient to be stopped under the direction of the patient or, in some cases, his or her family.