Definition Paper

Tossing and turning in the cold hospital bed in excruciating pain, you realize that your health is deteriorating and there is a small chance that you will live the next few months. Lying in your bed, no longer wanting to burden your family and friends or go through the misery in the hospital, you decide you no longer want to live. Telling the physician this information he/she suggests euthanasia. Would you really know your options considering euthanasia? The Oxford English Dictionary {Italicize or __underline__.} defines euthanasia as the action of inducing a gentle and easy death, but euthanasia is in fact more complicated and complex than what the Oxford English Dictionary defines it to be. Euthanasia is controversial issue in which the dictionary very indistinctly describes. Euthanasia is split into two different main categories: passive euthanasia and active euthanasia; {Replace the semicolon with "and".} then into different sub categories: voluntary euthanasia and involuntary euthanasia.

The Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of euthanasia is too broad to be used for the word euthanasia. The definition of euthanasia, if in fact is the inducing of gentle and easy death; {Delete the semicolon.} could be used inappropriately in many ways. For example, in the case of a murderer, if a serial killer kills his victims using a sedative drug, could that not be considered euthanasia if the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition is correct. Or in the case of suicide, if a person kills themselves using a painless technique, is that considered euthanasia?

Many people are inexperienced on the topic of euthanasia and do not know about the categories in which euthanasia is divided or about the controversy associated with euthanasia. John M. Ostheimer, Associate Professor of Political Science at Northern Arizona University, defines passive euthanasia as, “allowing a person to die a more natural death by not using “heroic” measures of life support or resuscitation and active euthanasia as taking some step such as injecting air or administering some chemical to a terminal patient in order to hasten death.” Voluntary euthanasia is a case in which the patient is aware and wants to die, whereas involuntary euthanasia is a case in which the patient is unaware and does not want to die.

Euthanasia is a very controversial issue; many people see it as being wrong while others believe it to be the best thing to do under certain circumstances. Philosophers and professors alike often see euthanasia as a moral issue while others take it at a conceptual viewpoint. There are many arguments on why euthanasia is or is not wrong or more importantly whether it should be or should not be legalized in the United States. Euthanasia is complex and fragile issue; to legalize it there would need to be many stipulations to satisfy many different situations.

Active and passive euthanasia is sometimes differentiated as killing and letting die. Active euthanasia is sometimes seen as killing because it the act of directly killing a patient. Passive euthanasia is seen as letting die because the life support is taken off the patient and the patient is being let die by natural means. It is under this distinction, where some of the arguments for and against active and passive euthanasia fall. Many philosophers and professors disagree on whether or not there is a moral distinction between active and passive euthanasia.

Euthanasia also gets complicated when the topic of whether the patient is incompetent (meaning the patient is comatose, completely brain-dead, or partially brain-dead) or competent (conscious of his/her actions). If the patient is incompetent the situation becomes more complex. Who decides for the patient? For example in the Terry Schiavo case, her parents wanted to keep her on the feeding tubes while her husband wanted to take her off. It is cases like these in which a patient does not have a living will that help make the issue of euthanasia a complex situation.

One major argument for active euthanasia is that passive euthanasia is inhumane. If a terminally ill patient no longer wants to live it is inhumane to discontinue and means of support and allow the patient to suffer until he/she dies. It is, in fact, a physician’s job to do what is in the best interest of the patient. It is in exactly this situation that the definition of euthanasia does not fit with the term passive euthanasia. In some cases when a patient is euthanized the patient does go through tremendous pain. If this is true how could the word euthanasia mean the action of inducing a gentle and easy death?

Euthanasia is a controversial and complicated issue that cannot simply be defined as the action of inducing a gentle and easy death. The Oxford English Dictionary’s definition is simply put and needs to be elaborated on.

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