Essay on Euthanasia and Doctor-Assisted Suicide -- Euthanasia Physicia

Understanding Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide This paper will address some of the more democratic points of interest involved with the euthanasia- assist suicide discussion. There are less than a dozen questions which would come to mind in the case of the average individual who has a mild interest in this debate, and the following essay presents information which would satisfy that individuals curiosity on these points of common interest. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are good in the state of Oregon and in the country of the Netherlands these are the only two jurisdictions in the world where laws specifically permit euthanasia or assisted suicide. Oregon permits assisted suicide.(Oregon) The Netherlands permits both euthanasia and assisted suicide.(Review) In 1995 Australias Northern Territory approved a euthanasia bill.(Rights) It went into effect in 1996 but was turn by the Australian Parliament in 1997. Also, in 1997, Colombias Supreme Court ruled that penalties for mercy ki lling should be removed.(Republic) However the ruling does not go into effect until guidelines, still to be drafted, are approved by the Colombian Congress. The difference between euthanasia and assisted suicide is seen this sort One way to distinguish them is to look at the last act - the act without which death would not occur. Using this distinction, if a third party performs the last act that designedly causes a patients death, euthanasia has occurred. For example, giving a patient a lethal injection or putting a plastic bag over her address to suffocate her would be considered euthanasia. On the other hand, if the person who dies performs the last act, assisted suicide has taken place. Thus it would be assisted suicid... ...1 Medscape. Available at http//www.medscape.com/Medscape/psychological medicine/clinicalMgmt/CM.v03/pnt-CM.v03.html, citing Jamison K.R., Night Falls Fast, New York, NY Alfred Knopf 1999. Accessed 3/19/01. Oregons Death with Dignity Act (ORS 127.800-8 97) passed in November 1994 and went into effect in 1997. Republic of Colombia Constitutional Court, Sentence c-239/97, Ref. politic D-1490, May 20, 1997. Review of cases of termination of life on request and assistance with suicide was approved in April 2001. Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, Northern Territory of Australia (1996). Wanzer,Sidney H. M.D. et al., The Physicians righteousness toward Hopelessly Ill Patients A Second Look, 320 The New England Journal of Medicine (March 30, 1989), p. 848. Websters New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second edition (1976).