Ch. 8

Active, passive euthanasia, voluntary, non-voluntary

Refers to giving a patient a lethal injection or medications that will terminate his life. Either way, active euthanasia requires taking an action that will end the patient's life.

Refers to withholding medical treatment or procedures that would prolong or save the patient's life.

Passive euthanasia, because its withholding treatment.

Not giving medication or not performing a surgery that would save the patient's life are instances of passive euthanasia.

Occurs if the patient is the one who make the decision to be euthanized

Make a conscious request or through a living will.

Refers to a situation in which someone other than the patient makes that decision on the patient's behalf.

When the patient is unable to communicate his wishes, and there is no living will to specify what should be done.

Occurs when a treatment is witheld at the patient's request.

Occurs when a patient is unable to communicate his desires (because he is in a coma or in vegetative state), the patient does not have a living will and a family member makes the decision to disconnect him from life support.

yes

controversial case, such as Terri Schiavo

everyone had a living will that specified their desires. Then their would be no such thing as passive non voluntary euthanasia

Refers to a situation in which someone other than the patient decides to give a lethal injection or otherwise terminates the patient's life without the patient's consent.

no, because when it comes to this type of euthanasia it is a plain case of murder.

occurs when a lethal injection or medications are given at the patients request.

active voluntary euthanasia

illegal, it is murder/suicide

Dr. Jack Kevorkian's suicide machine, which allows the patient to operate the machine that will terminate his life.

allowing someone to die

an act of killing

American medical association

there cannot be moral difference between the two as long as the ultimate outcome of both actions are the same. So not taking an action that would save the patients life is as wrong as taking an action that will terminate it.

morally correct course of action in those cases is to allow euthanasia in order to minimize pain.

If we were in those unfortunate circumstances, suffering more than we could handle, we would want to euthanized. We should not deny it to others since we would not want it denied to us.

Active voluntary euthanasia is murder, and murder is always wrong.

in the long run it might lead to legalization of active non-voluntary euthanasia, which is plain murder.

we have an unconditional duty to uphold our own lives regardless of the circumstances or consequences. while it may be extremely difficult or challenging to do so, we are never supposed to give up and we should always uphold this duty.

whether the patient gave his consent or not, because we can not draw a line between the two.

have a mandatory evaluation before they can be euthanized, and only those who are judged to be fully rational can exercise this option.

a dangerous step that will open the door for abuse and eventually to a legalization of active non-voluntary euthanasia.

J. gay williams

a florida woman suffered cardiac arrest and never regained consciousness. She had to receive food and fluids through tubes.

he petitioned a florida court to authorize termination of the life support procedures.

her parented opposed it.

she would choose cease life-prolonging procedures if she were competent to make that decision. They also concluded that she was in "persistent vegetative state" with no chance of recovery.

nancy cruzan and karen quinlan.

pass a bill and put the tubes back in.

him and his wife wanted to take their 15 month old boy who was partially brain dead of a respirator. the hospital wouldn't allow it so he took a gun and did it anyways. he got charged with first degree murder but the charges were dropped.

had a wife named myrna lebov. she had multiple sclerosis. he helped assist her suicide on 4 of july independence day.

first time law banning assisted suicide had come before a federal judge. it eventually ruled the law constitutional rejecting the claim that committing suicide was a fundamental liberty.

set restrictions on active euthanasia and doctor assisted suicide under a set of strict restrictions.