Lets Take It Back

For this blog post I will be looking into the history of euthanasia and how it has affected the laws of the different countries around the world.

Surprisingly, euthanasia has been around for thousands of years. However, it has only become such a hot topic since communities began conflicting with what the majority group, doctors and governments, were saying.



Hippocrates



As early as 5^th century BC, Ancient Greeks and Romans supported euthanasia. However, it was not labelled as this. Doctors called it ‘mercy killing’ and they would help the sick to die because it was ‘convenient’. Individual lives were not seen as important. Therefore, doctors reflected on whether saving this life was going to benefit the community as a whole (ProCon.org, 2013). Seems harsh, but way back then medical resources were not on hand as they are today. It was more economical to give a terminal patient a sip of ‘poison’ and let them sip away. However, one Greek physician, Hippocrates (460-377 BC) saw the wrong in what was happening and created the Hippocratic oath. Practicing doctors had to take this oath, which included “concepts such as putting the good of patients above the interest of doctors” (Gifford, 2004, p.17). This meant, doctors could no longer make the decision to kill a patient because they felt it suited them. What is really amazing is that this oath, that is thousands of years old, is still taken by practicing doctors today.

As Christianity began to grow, new beliefs against euthanasia emerged. Life was seen as sacred and any type of killing was seen as sin (RsRevision.com, 2011). This belief is still strong today; people die when God calls on them, not when man decides their time is up.

In 1848, John Warren, began encouraging doctors to use morphine to treat the “pains of death” (Wikipedia, 2013, para. 23). This was supported, in 1866, by Joseph Bullar who suggested using chloroform. Although neither options where directly meant for the use of killing patients, the outcomes where that of death. This sparked the beginning of many countries around the world making euthanasia illegal.   

Fast forwarding to 2013 it is quite interesting to look at our world and see how it defines and accepts euthanasia. An American website states that euthanasia “means to take a deliberate action with the express intention of ending a life to relieve intractable (persistent, unstoppable) suffering” (Medical News Today, 2010, para. 1). Like most countries around the world, in America, euthanasia is illegal. However, this is The Netherlands definition of euthanasia. “Euthanasia is understood [as] an action which aims at taking the life of another at the latter’s expressed request. It concerns an action of which death is the purpose and the result.” (Patients Right Council, 2013, para. 7). In The Netherlands, voluntary euthanasia is legal. It is called ‘life-terminating treatment’ and it is important to stress that there are policies in place to insure the patient does consent to this type of treatment. Doctors do not practice any type of euthanasia if the correct paper work is not in place.



Dignitas (Assisted Dying Organisation)



Switzerland is also pro-euthanasia. The Swiss have created a group of people called ‘Dignitas’ who have the permission to legally assist with suicides of people who wish to die due to medical conditions. Dignitas are able to provide this ‘service’ to people from Switzerland and for others who come to the country from overseas. The Swiss Supreme Court have recently made the decision to allow “chronically depressed and mentally ill people [to] have the right to assisted suicide” (Life, 2013, papa. 7). This new law shocked me. My believes are that people who are suffering from depression should be given all the support they need in order to find happiness again. However, as the Swiss point out, suicide is the only way some depressed people belief they can find happiness, therefore, who can deny them of their only wish?

Euthanasia is social issue that will continue to make history. The stories of euthanasia are spread by media more and more as people voice their opinions and governments make new policies. Doctors continue to care for terminally ill patients while their loved ones voice the need for the pain and suffering to stop. So what is really going on here? Why are doctors prolonging a life that is full of pain or even trapped in a vegetated state? Why are the requests from terminally ill patients to end their lives falling on deaf ears?    

References

Gifford, C. (2004). World issues: Euthanasia. London, England: Chrysalis Books Group.  

Life. (2013). Where it is legal in the world. Retrieved from http://www.wrtl.org/assistedsuicide/assistedsuicide/whereitislegalWorld.aspx.

Patients Rights Council. (2013). Background about euthanasia in The Netherlands. Retrieved from http://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/holland-background/ .

ProCon.org: Euthanasia. (2013). Historical timeline. Retrieved from http://euthanasia.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000130 . 

RsRevision.com. (2011). The bible and euthanasia. Retrieved from http://www.rsrevision.com/GCSE/christian_perspectives/life/euthanasia/bible.htm.

Medical News Today. (2010). What is euthanasia? Retrieved from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/182951.php.

Wikipedia. (2013). Euthanasia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia.

To get us thinking...

It’s not a topic everyone is comfortable talking about. However, everyone has some kind of opinion on this social issue. Families, communities, and governments have argued relentlessly over the hot topic that stirs the opinions of many into spiralling debate. Is it ethical? Is it right? Is it human?

Euthanasia seems to be a topic you either have to be for, or against. In saying this, I believe in order to ‘pick a side’, you first have to understand what euthanasia really is, and finding a definition is not as easy as you may think.

The Oxford Dictionary (2012) defines euthanasia as “the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or an irreversible coma” (para.1). This definition seems simple enough, but defining euthanasia does not end there.

Stearman (2009) suggests that there are two types of euthanasia. The first, voluntary euthanasia, “is where the affected person makes their own decision to die” (p.6). An example of this could be a patient who has a terminal illness, and is in a great amount of pain. They may make the decision to carry out the act alone, however, often the patient is not able to do it without help. Therefore, they may request to be given a drug to end their pain. This is defined as assisted suicide.

The second type of euthanasia is involuntary euthanasia. This “is where another person...takes the decision to enable the affected person to die because he or she is incapable of making this decision personally” (Stearman, 2009, p. 7). An example of this type of euthanasia is when a person is in a permanent coma, when life support machines are the only thing keeping the person alive. As the person is unable to speak for themselves, the people they love are left to debate their fate. The many factors, opinions, beliefs and ‘what if’s’ that families and loved ones are forced to debate makes this type of euthanasia the most controversial.

As I travel down this murky road of conflict-ridden debate, I hope to gain an understanding of the many perspectives this issue involves. My aim is not to ‘pick a side’ but to see, reflect on, and understand why people make the choices they do, and how these choices affect the world around us.   

References

Oxford Dictionary. (2012). Euthanasia. Retrieved from http://oxforddictionaries.com/ definition/english/euthanasia).

Stearman, K. (2009). Euthanasia. London, UK: Hachette.