Active Euthanasia Physician Assisted Suicide is Wrong Essay

Active Euthanasia: Physician Assisted Suicide is Wrong The issue at hand is whether physician-assisted suicide should be legalized for patients who are terminally ill and/or enduring prolonged suffering. In this debate, the choice of terms is central. The most common term, euthanasia, comes from the Greek words meaning good death. Sidney Hook calls it voluntary euthanasia, and Daniel C. Maguire calls it death by choice, but John Leo calls it cozy little homicides. Eileen Doyle points out the dangers of a popular term, quality-of-life. The choice of terms may serve to conceal, or to enhance, the basic fact that euthanasia ends a human life. Different authors choose different terms, depending on which side of the issue†¦show more content†¦It is not murder, and it is not suicide. It is not emotionally loaded at all. In real life, however, the question of euthanasia is, and should be, filled with emotion. Maguire acknowledges the argument that acceptance of the practice of euthanasia could lead society down the path toward the mass murder of physically and mentally defective persons (p. 449). He argues, however, that the specific case under examination is drastic, and our behavior in a drastic case cannot be generalized to our behavior in normal situations. In fact, if we keep that particular defective child alive, then we are defining our terms wrongly. We are committing the error of interpreting the sanctity of life in merely physical terms (p. 449). First, he uses the example of a fetus, which is not yet a person, but which is capable of becoming a person. This image is followed by a transition, at the end of the tenth paragraph, to his next idea, which is that life might sometimes be terminated when other sacred values outweigh its claims to life in a conflict situation (p. 449). Maguires idea of the correct definition of the sanctity of life, in the eleventh paragraph, is a generic notion that fails to take account of sacred human digni ty, and he proposes that the sanctity of death might here take precedence over a physicalist interpretation of the sanctity of life (pp. 449-450). In other words, he is offering new terms that reverse the old terminology. TheShow MoreRelatedEuthanasia And Assisted Suicide Should Be Legalized Essay1221 Words   |  5 Pages The Oxford English Dictionary states that euthanasia is a gentle and easy death (Oxford English Dictionary). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, active euthanasia is the ending of a terminally ill person s life by direct intervention, such as administering a lethal dose of painkilling drug (Oxford English Dictionary). 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