Essay on Euthanasia Should Be Illegal In All 50 States

Euthanasia has long been the most discussed topic in different societies. Source of controversy began more than 2,500 years ago, when Hippocrates proposed an oath which was introduced in ancient Greece as a guide to behavior for new doctors, and later was used by the Islamic Empire. This oath prohibits doctors to make something in harm to their patients, and exactly this oath makes people to be worried about the issue of euthanasia even nowadays. Thus, we are going to prove that euthanasia should be illegal in America, and we are going to do it using many specific examples in support of the above mentioned position against euthanasia.

To begin, we need to note that there exist many different opinions about the necessity or prohibition of euthanasia because the issue of euthanasia does not leave anyone indifferent. Euthanasia on the reason of severe illness seems a kind of a grave sin for one group of people, and the only escape from suffering for others. It is a fact that seriously ill people in several states in the U.S. can figure on the help of doctors in the implementation of suicide but this kind of “mercy killing” very often has severe consequences and is on the border of law and religion.

The first support against euthanasia is connected with medical duty. It is a well-known fact that most people who support euthanasia are ordinary laymen. Doctors among them are rare guests. But in fact, a decision to commit assisted suicide or not depends on the opinion of the last group in many respects because only doctors can stop the suffering of a terminally ill patient. So let’s talk about those who should to fight for the maintenance of life in the body of a patient by all means under the law of medical ethics.

Let us remember the fact that issues of euthanasia and assisted suicide are the main reason for the dispute of doctors and bioethicists for decades. Traditionally, most doctors can and are willing to help their terminally ill patients in end of their life, but do not risk to go for it for a fear of legal problems. However, as the results of a survey conducted in the UK shows, many doctors actually consider such action contrary to their moral principles (Keown, 2002). Such decision can be explained by the fact that the procedure of euthanasia is contrary to the traditional medical ethics, namely the medical Hippocratic Oath (“I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism ”¦ I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect”) (Gorsuch, 2006). This view is reflected in the Lisbon Declaration on Euthanasia (1987) of World Medical Association: “Euthanasia as an act of deliberate deprivation of life of the patient, even at the request of the patient, is not ethical” (Lavi, 2007). This means that euthanasia stands as medicine’s primary taboo, and contradicts medical ethics by its essence.