Eithanasia

Euthanasia

The Oxford English Dictionary define euthanasia as the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma. Its origin early 17th century (in the sense 'easy death'): from Greek, from eu 'well' + thanatos 'death'. In my attempt to define Euthanasia, I define it as the mean to end life easily. Its goal is to end the life of a person for own request, for a relative, or determination of any health professional to prevent the suffering of a patient. It is a life ending when it would otherwise be prolonged.

There are many experiences and connotations that have developed around euthanasia from primitive times to the present. In the Nazi context, however, "euthanasia" represented a euphemistic term for a clandestine murder program which targeted for systematic killing mentally and physically disabled patients living in institutional settings in Germany and German-annexed territories. The Nazi experience revealed a negative use of the term euthanasia. Nazis promoted the death of disabled or handicapped by considered the argument as a compassionate act.

Jonathan Moreno, PhD, wrote in his 1995 book Arguing Euthanasia: The Controversy Over Mercy Killing, Assisted Suicide, and the "Right to Die": "Strictly speaking, the term

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'euthanasia' refers to actions or omissions that result in the death of a person who is already gravely ill. Techniques of active euthanasia range from gunfire to lethal injection, while passive euthanasia can be achieved by failing to treat a pneumonia or by witholding or withdrawing ventilatory support”. According to the definition set out by Jonathan Moreno, I find that the euthanasia is divided into active and passive euthanasia.

The active euthanasia occurs when the medical professionals, or another person, deliberately do something that causes the patient to die voluntarily. This is typically done for a patient who repeatedly requests the end of his/her life. However, a couple years ago I heard a story of a mother who begged to the authorities euthanized his son, a man of 40 years, who had been for the last 24 months in a vegetative state after suffering a major loss of brain mass. In spite the patient was unconscious and unable to communicate, euthanasia was performed without his consent.

On the other hand, passive euthanasia occurs when the patient dies because the medical professionals either don't do something necessary to keep the patient alive, or when they stop doing something that is keeping the patient alive. In a particular case, a 25 years old woman, who suffered a rare brain neuralgia called Guillaim-Barre syndrome, which she had paralyzed from the neck down and forced to live connected to a ventilator. She asked authorities to be allowed to disconnect

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