Even when it succeeds? Above all when it succeeds. Victor Hugo, History of a Crime Regardless of whether or not we like it, our primary function as adults in this society is to set the example for younger and less experienced persons even if we have no children ourselves.
After all, what we teach the young will largely determine how they run the world after they inherit it and this, in turn, will determine what kind of world our grandchildren will inherit.
What we teach the young will also determine how they treat us when we are elderly and infirm. The teen suicide rate in this country has tripled in the last fifteen years to more than 2, deaths per year, as discussed in Chapter 88 of Volume II, "Suicide by Teenagers.
Experts in the demographics of suicide suicidologists already call this situation 'epidemic. What kind of an example does Janet Adkins give to teenagers when she kills herself just because her piano playing is beginning to deteriorate? Or because she may experience some unknown degree of pain eight to ten years down the road pain that could easily be alleviated? How will we tell a despondent teenager that he has no right to kill himself if the cheerleader he adores spurns him?
How about the young girl whose pet cat dies? Or who becomes pregnant too soon? Or the boy who doesn't make the baseball team? Or who gets a failing grade on his report card? Teenagers don't respond to a double standard. They don't accept the adage "Do as I say, not as I do. How will we react to a pandemic of teen suicide without appearing and being grossly hypocritical?
Entropy is the measure of the degree of disorder of systems. And all systems from the smallest to the largest, and from the simplest to the most complex tend to accumulate entropy, unless positive steps are taken to prevent this process. This immutable principle applies equally to living and nonliving systems. Every type of system requires effort in order to maintain it in an ordered state.
Every type of system, if it is neglected, will begin to decay and disintegrate. Eventually, if it is not cared for, the lawn will return to its original riotous, biologically diverse, and disordered state. Eventually, if it is not maintained, it will fall apart and will be hauled to a junkyard. Our roads, bridges, and water and sewer systems are falling apart because not enough maintenance money is allocated to them.
The fight against disorder is being lost. We must feed our bodies the proper foods, exercise, and refrain from destructive activities like the use of tobacco products, illegal drugs, and excessive alcohol. Eventually, if our bodies are not maintained, they will sicken and die far too soon. If we do not maintain constant vigilance over our attitudes and beliefs, we will become self-centered.
We will live only for self-gratification. Eventually, our consciences will sicken and die. When its individual members become obsessed with themselves and their own selfish pleasures, a society will sicken and eventually be absorbed by other cultures. This principle holds true even for animal-based clans and troops. As long as prodigious quantities of energy in all its forms is being exchanged, the universe will live on. However, tens of billions of years from now, the universe will 'wind down' and will experience its 'heat death,' when everything is the same temperature and entropy disorder is at a maximum.
Entropy, while a fact of life everywhere, is considered 'bad' in virtually all cases. When highly organized systems i. The anti-life mentality is essentially entropic. It favors contraception, sterilization, abortion, and euthanasia. This strange mindset strives to destroy the natural and efficient function of the human reproductive system, and ultimately, considers man to be just another animal.
Curiously, while it considers humanity just another species of animal, it fails to recognize that non-instinct driven euthanasia is unknown in the animal world. It is a universal axiom that anything manmade that is 'good' is difficult to initiate, maintain, or expand, while it is difficult to prevent what is 'bad' from spontaneously initiating, continuing, or expanding. In other words, 'bad' manmade or man-influenced things grow by themselves; 'good' things must be continuously nurtured.
As stated above, a 'good' lawn requires continuous maintenance or it will sprout 'bad' weeds all over the place; a 'good' truck requires constant attention or it will become rusted and detuned; a 'good' teenager must be nurtured or he will acquire 'bad' habits like drug or alcohol use.
Lawns do not police themselves, and trucks do not tune and maintain themselves. By commutative reasoning, we may infer that whatever is man-influenced and grows by itself is 'bad. Abortion is a good example of this reasoning. In a period of just five years, it expanded relentlessly, almost effortlessly, from a few exceptions in a few states to a universal 'right' available through all nine months of pregnancy all over the country.
By contrast, a 'good' social expansion is the civil rights movement, which required decades of struggle on many fronts, the martyrdom of dozens, and is still not complete. Another 'good' example of civil rights activism is our own pro-life anti-abortion movement, which must struggle relentlessly against the full weight of the media and the state and Federal governments. Every small advance must be vigilantly guarded, or it will be reabsorbed quickly and effortlessly.
We can see that euthanasia is expanding relentlessly and effortlessly, just as abortion did twenty years ago. We began our euthanasia 'program' with a few extreme cases allowing those in extreme agony, days from dying, to pass away peacefully and passively and now, we annually have thousands of handicapped newborns dying of neglect and many more thousands of elderly secretly 'put away' by our doctors and nursing homes.
If something is incomprehensible to the common man, it is usually something that is not in his best interests. If a social proposal is confusing and undecipherable, it is usually something that Neoliberals are trying to "slip by" us. As always, anyone who sees the euthanasia issue in "black and white" terms is condemned as "simplistic" by the Hemlock Society and other Neoliberal organizations. It is in the best interests of these groups to make the issue appear to be as complicated and as vague as possible, because then the vast majority of the public will feel timid and unqualified to comment or even hold an opinion on it.
This is the mighty weapon of "mystagoguery" that worked so well for the pro-abortionists, particularly regarding the issue of "when life begins. Pro-euthanasia lobbyists are notoriously shortsighted and unimaginative. They believe that everyone should be able to do away with themselves, and they also believe that society has no interest in such self-destructive acts.
This is unmitigated rubbish. Every person who enters our society develops, throughout his life, a web of relationships so complex that it can never be completely summarized or traced. Every person significantly affects hundreds of other members of this society every year, often without realizing it.
A society-system is roughly analogous to a human body. Its major cities represent organs; the capital is the brain in the United States, this 'brain' appears to be mentally handicapped ; the interstate highways are the arteries, and local roads are the capillaries, carrying nutrients to every cell. We, as individuals, might represent blood cells conveying nutrients to every other cell and organ in the body. In this setting, euthanasia could be considered a type of leukemia, where individual blood cells start destroying themselves randomly and at an ever-increasing rate.
No human body can live with an acute case of leukemia, and no society can endure if its people destroy themselves at a high enough rate. All of a healthy body's cells work together to promote the common good of the body.
Similarly, individual persons work together to advance the common good of society. Each of us plays a vital part in this many-faceted corpus. Just as our bodies could not survive if individual cells took it upon themselves to randomly 'self-destruct,' our society cannot tolerate the accelerated destruction of individuals without serious damage.
Everyone has, at one time or another, experienced despair so deep that they may have even thought of how easy it would be to just 'let go' and die.
This kind of depression is no joke, and it does no good to simply tell the person to just "Snap out of it! This kind of despair can easily lead to one of the more than 25, suicides this country suffers annually.
Perhaps the greatest sorrow of all is to see a person totally without hope. This is because, as long as there is a means to thwart one's troubles, hope remains. When a person has lost all hope, he has lost all faith that he has any control over his situation. Our society's emphasis on "choice" and "control" has aggravated this problem terribly. We are told that we cannot have control if we cannot have an infinite universe of choices or avenues of action.
Therefore, we have become conditioned to think that, if we lose options, we have lost control of our lives. And, if we lose control of our lives, those lives are not worth living. We come to think of ourselves as less than human if we cannot have total control all of the time. This is nonsense. As long as we are living, we can seek to improve our situation. We can actually generate choices ourselves if we have been trained to possess initiative and imagination.
To kill oneself, of course, is to really lose control of the situation. Intentionally causing one's own death, or suicide, is therefore equally as wrong as murder; such an action on the part of a person is to be considered as a rejection of God's sovereignty and loving plan. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Ethics guide. Ethical problems of euthanasia. On this page Ethical problems of euthanasia Page options Print this page.
Ethical problems of euthanasia Does an individual who has no hope of recovery have the right to decide how and when to end their life? Why euthanasia should be allowed Those in favour of euthanasia argue that a civilised society should allow people to die in dignity and without pain, and should allow others to help them do so if they cannot manage it on their own.
They add that as suicide is not a crime, euthanasia should not be a crime. Why euthanasia should be forbidden Religious opponents of euthanasia believe that life is given by God, and only God should decide when to end it. Catholic healthcare ethics faces a stormy future in the midst of turbulent seas. Gale force winds and tempestuous cultural currents are approaching that are well beyond the control of any individual or institution. These new cultural and political forces will put pressure on all healthcare providers, but Catholics will confront unique moral and ethical challenges.
Most distressing is the certainty that Catholics who adhere to a consistent ethic of life are going to face tougher opposition as they struggle to defend society's most vulnerable members — the unborn, the poor, and the dying. The major ethical contention will concern the ethics of dying, although struggles over abortion and genetic manipulation will not fade away. Catholic insistence on the radical moral equality of embryonic life has been a long-standing project.
As a result, well-articulated moral arguments have been developed to set forth a prolife position that insists on protecting the beginning of human life as a matter of justice and equality. Unfortunately, there have not been equally well-articulated moral arguments to counter society's growing acceptance of a supposedly moral right to suicide, physician-assisted suicide, or euthanasia.
Even many Catholics working in healthcare seem unable to defend the Church's position on good moral grounds. At the risk of being an alarmist, I can well imagine a runaway movement soon establishing individuals' autonomous right to choose to die when and how they please, with the mandated assistance of healthcare providers.
The Mass Appeal As we watch the cultural rush toward physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, it is important to realize that this movement is not a plot by some elite group trying to dupe the American people, but is, alas, a strong grassroots movement. The popular support for Jack Kevorkian and his suicide apparatus attests to the mass appeal of assisted suicide. The offer of complete control over one's dying by medically assisted suicide seems to seduce 1 those who do not wish to be kept barely alive by overzealously employed technological "miracles," and 2 those who do not wish to suffer, to be diminished, or to be dependent on others for care.
Because so many people are affected by these fears, we can predict the appearance of more campaigns to get state legislatures to approve physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. Adding to the problem, a growing number of respected secular ethicists and physicians defend the morality of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Since death is a limit or boundary-of-life event, attitudes toward dying are shaped by foundational beliefs about the meaning and purpose of life. Persuading others of the immorality of suicide, physician-assisted suicide, or euthanasia will mean arguing about the deepest foundations of our culture and civilization.
This is not going to be easy, but it is a worthwhile ethical enterprise. The "goods" that people seek in suicide and euthanasia must be shown to be suspect and dangerous, while the alternative ideal of steadfast caring for the dying must be shown to foster human flourishing. In arguments over death it is crucial to achieve a balance: between valuing individual autonomy and protecting the common good; between affirming the goodness of life and accepting death as a reality of the life cycle.
Actions and example also count in cultural moral struggles, so it is vital that Catholic healthcare institutions offer a caring environment in which individuals can die with dignity, comfort, and grace. Means and Ends Another challenging piece of the moral argument lies in convincing people that the means and processes used to achieve a goal are rarely neutral. Distinguishing between means, ends, and motivations and then morally evaluating them separately is crucial in understanding the difference between actively killing a person and letting the dying die a peaceful death.
In the same way, relieving pain by giving medication that also may hasten death is not the same as giving an injection directly aimed at killing the person. Although a dying person eventually ends up dead whether you withdraw treatment or actively give a lethal injection, the processes are different, with a host of different repercussions and social side effects.
To define euthanasia, as well as orthanasia, misthanasia and dysthanasia, to start from this, to discuss the different philosophical, ethical and moral visions that surround the subject. Exploratory qualitative study which defined from the existing literature the pertinent concepts and from them brought discussions about euthanasia. Euthanasia "Good Death" and dysthanasia are medical procedures that concern the death of the human being and the most appropriate way of dealing with it.
Euthanasia is primarily concerned with the quality of human life in its final phase, while dysthanasia seeks the extension of the human life quantity, fighting death. Euthanasia differs from social euthanasia, or misthanasia miserable death because it has no relation with the search for a good, smooth and painless death.
Orthothanasia art of well-dying rejects all forms of misthanasia, yet does not fall into the trap of euthanasia or dysthanasia. There is a link between the economic devaluation of human beings and the cultural tendency that is increasingly emphasized in refusing the will of the right to live for those who are too weak to demand this right.
A dichotomy between favorable views and contrary to euthanasia was obtained. This discussion is surrounded by modern moral, ethical and philosophical values that conflict with of the postmodernism. Euthanasia within a modern concept cannot be contemplated with the dominant values of the Christian morality.
This moral is incorporated by the norms of health accepted by the majority of health professionals. With the increase in life expectancy, discussions about the possibility of intervening in the life cycle, accelerating or extending the moment of death, were reinvigorated, perhaps being one of the central questions of ethics applied to health [ 1 ]. Traditionally there is strong resistance from health professionals to life interruption, on the grounds that the medical function is to save lives.
However, there is a great incongruity in this claim, since the "detachment of the apparatus" so that "life goes on its course", known as passive euthanasia, is considered a routine procedure [ 1 ]. We will seek in this article to define euthanasia as well as orthatanasia, misthanasia and dysthanasia for from this to discuss the different philosophical, moral and ethical visions that surround the theme and finally to present alternatives to the practice and discussions of some cases.
This is an exploratory qualitative study that will seek to define, in a first moment, the concepts of euthanasia as well as its correlates dysthanasia, orthothanasia and misthanasia and from them to bring discussions about these themes, in the light of thinkers, modernists and postmodernists.
Finally, it will search in the literature, emblematic cases of euthanasia for analysis. In , the Journal of the American Medical Association Jama published an anonymous report that sparked the international debate on euthanasia [ 2 ]:.
The call came in the middle of the night. Maybe an elderly woman with an anxiety reaction, or perhaps something particularly horrible. I grabbed the chart from the nurses' station on my way to the patient's room, and the nurse gave me some hurried details: a year-old girl named Debbie was dying of ovarian cancer. She was having unrelenting vomiting apparently as the result of an alcohol drip administered for sedation.
Hmmm, I thought. Very sad. As I approached the room, I could hear loud, labored breathing. I entered and saw an emaciated, dark-haired woman who appeared much older than She was receiving nasal oxygen, had an IV, and was sitting in bed suffering from what was obviously severe air hunger.
Both looked up as I entered. It was a gallows scene, a cruel mockery of her youth and unfulfilled potential. Her only words to me were, "Let's get this over with". I retreated with my thoughts to the nurses' station. The patient was tired and needed rest. I could not give her health, but I could give her rest.
I asked the nurse to draw 20 mg of morphine sulfate into a syringe. Enough, I thought, to give Debbie something that would let her rest and to say good-bye. Debbie looked at the syringe, then laid her head on the pillow with her eyes open, watching what was left of the world. I injected the morphine intravenously and watched to see if my calculations on its effects would be correct. Within seconds her breathing slowed to a normal rate, her eyes closed, and her features softened as she seemed restful at last.
The older woman stroked the hair of the new-sleeping patient. I waited for the inevitable next effect of depressing the respiratory drive. With clocklike certainty, within four minutes, the breathing rate slowed even more, then became irregular, then ceased. The dark-haired woman stood erect and seemed relieved.
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