Euthanasia

A friend asked me to express my views about euthanasia in my blog. He argued that euthanasia should be made legal, and that each individual in poor health should be given the right to pass away peacefully, rather than spend a lot of money on medical treatment (which, in his opinion, enrich the doctors).

Here is my reply to him:

1. This is a highly emotive issue
2. In practice, those who do not wish to be treated, can reject treatment anyway.

Here is the definition of euthanasia:

Euthanasia (from Ancient Greek: ευθανασία, "good death"[I]) is the practice of ending the life of a human or animal who is incurably ill in a painless or minimally painful way, for the purpose of limiting suffering.

Laws around the world vary greatly with regard to euthanasia, and are constantly subject to change as cultural values shift and better palliative care, or treatments become available. It is legal in some nations, while in others it may be criminalized.

Euthanasia can be conducted in various ways. In order to distinguish certain methods, more specific terminology may be used when discussing euthanasia.

Even though it seems like a very humain way of putting a person out of pain, some times doctors put patients to death without their consent. In addition, in Holand, 8,100 patients died because doctors deliberately gave them overdoses of medications, for the purpose of hastening the patient's death. In 61% of these cases (4,941 patients), the overdose was given without the patient's consent.