HE470 Medical Law: Exploring the Complexities of Euthanasia

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of euthanasia, differentiating between palliative care and life-saving care, while delving into the ethical and legal considerations surrounding this complex issue. It examines the legal frameworks in different countries, including the UK, Japan, Egypt, and India, and discusses the ethical viewpoints from Christian and Islamic perspectives. The essay further compares and contrasts active and passive euthanasia, highlighting the moral and philosophical debates associated with each approach, and concludes by emphasizing the importance of considering both humanitarian aspects and potential misuse in the context of end-of-life decisions.

Running Head: EUTHANASIA 0
Euthanasia
student

EUTHANASIA
1
Table of Contents
Difference between Palliative care and life-saving care..................................................................2
Legal and ethical considerations in euthanasia............................................................................3
Legal.........................................................................................................................................3
Ethical.......................................................................................................................................3
Passive and active euthanasia......................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................6

EUTHANASIA
2
Euthanasia
Difference between Palliative care and life-saving care
It is the deliberate action commenced by a single person with the purpose of either
painlessly putting a person to death or failing to stop death from common or natural causes in
cases of incurable diseases or unalterable coma (Keown, 2018). There are the different opinion
of experts or health professionals about using palliative care and life-saving care in case of
Euthanasia. Palliative care is the strategy that enhances the life quality of the diseased person
and their relatives or family members experiencing issues related to life threating diseases
(Radbruch, et al., 2016). On the other hand, life-saving care is the approach or intervention
provided by the nurses at the end of life phase. The nurse provides psychological and emotional
support for the patient. Life-saving care in euthanasia is provided when the patients are willing
to be dead as their medical condition is not curable (Vizcarrondo, 2014). Palliative and the
hospice nurses frequently provide training to the community as numerous individuals think of
nurses as delivering life-saving upkeep and are not assured what end-of-life upkeep requires.
Examples and types of palliative care:
 For an elderly woman whose modest phase Alzheimer’s symptoms include nervousness
and obsession, the palliative expert advice the alternative drugs, music usage and a
programmed team re-evaluation as the disease progresses.
 For a child whose effective cystic fibrosis treatment causes breathing problem, sleep
problems and nervousness, in this particular case the palliative upkeep professional might
provide other drugs, play therapy and relaxation practices (Casey, & Houghton, 2010).

EUTHANASIA
3
Legal and ethical considerations in euthanasia
Legal
In both communal and specialized media, the regulations linked to euthanasia have
concerned considerable statement. Making euthanasia legal would signify a major communal
growth with a particular meaning for health expert and patients (Landry, Foreman, & Kekewich,
2015). British regulation forbids dying assisted by someone. Applying the active type of
euthanasia would usually make a person answerable to be charged with killing. UK courts have
constantly established that actively hurrying the expiry of a patient with medicinal intervention is
illegal (Keown, 2018). In Japan: only the passive type of euthanasia can be practised for a patient
is in Coma for more than three months. In Egypt, or other Islamic nations in overall, the
widespread Egyptians' Specialist Sheikh, recently issued a fatwa. On the other hand In India
applying euthanasia in any type was legal before the very latest Case of Aruna Shaunbaug
remained as long existing argument in India where people argued about right to life and right to
die (Sinha, Basu, & Sarkhel, 2012).
Ethical
Euthanasia arises different questions such as is it always right to finish the life of a fatally
ill person who is experiencing serious pain and distress, under what conditions can euthanasia be
acceptable, if at entirely, is there an ethical dissimilarity between murder somebody and letting
them easily die?. Some individuals consider that even if euthanasia is ethically right, medically
assisted death should not be permitted, as it could be mistreated and applied as the shield for
killing. From Christianity and Islamic point of view, the worth of humanoid life could not be

EUTHANASIA
4
restrained by wellbeing or intellect. All diseased people who are old ill have the same
importance to the people who are healthy (Terkamo-Moisio, et al., 2017).
Euthanasia devices might be misused to murder patients in contradiction of their will.
Though certain of the severe patients might ask to reduce their lifespan as it is not possible for
them to really endure the pain, the diseased person who cannot discuss their determination would
fail their right. Most individuals would not recognize this to be killed; it is finest defined as
helped suicide (Banović, & Turanjanin, 2014). Western communities, commonly, have
developed outside the outlooks of the previous time where suicide was deliberated as an offence,
where an unsuccessful suicide was taken as killing, and the people denied a religious burial of
the body in the hallowed ground. Those who try to commit suicide today are commonly treated
with kindness and provided with whatever help conceivable to address the desperate conditions
(Quaghebeur, Dierckx de Casterlé, & Gastmans, 2009).
Passive and active euthanasia
Active type of euthanasia (AE) is actually the deliberated intervention to finish
somebody's life –for instance, by administrating them a large dosage of sedatives to the patient or
sufferer. Passive type of euthanasia (PA) is occasionally used to mention to instigating
someone's expiry by suppression or diminishing treatment or interventions that are essential to
maintaining the patient’s life (Annadurai, Danasekaran, & Mani, 2014).
The difference between the active and passive type of euthanasia is believed to be vital
for medical morals. Active type of euthanasia used when surgeons purposely do something on
caring grounds such as administrating a substance or constituent in the body of the patient, the
injected substance causes death whereas passive euthanasia is applied when the clinicians stop

EUTHANASIA
5
performing something to retain the diseased person alive such as turning off the life-support
machines or detaching feeding pipes (Banović, & Turanjanin, 2014). In the passive type of
euthanasia what clinicians organize is that they change life support arrangement and let nature
take a patient's life. Another central dissimilarity between active and passive euthanasia is the
ethical debate that surrounds the murder of the sufferer. Many philosophers deliberate active type
euthanasia as a depraved activity and deliberate it to be equal to killing an individual as
clinicians in a way are supporting the sufferer to commit suicide (Ebrahimi, 2012).
In the active type of euthanasia, they straight and deliberately cause an individual's
death. In PA physician do not openly take patient’s life but they let them die. Persons who favour
active euthanasia apply the word self-deliverance to define the life of the incurably ill patient
ending (Sinha, Basu, & Sarkhel, 2012). Those people consider the self-deliverance must be
measured as a helpful act that will offer an enduring answer to the long-lasting pain and distress
of somebody with a fatal condition. Active euthanasia in numerous cases is more humanitarian
compared to passive euthanasia. The conservative policy results in decisions regarding life and
expiry on immaterial grounds. The doctrine breaks on a difference between murder and
permitting die that itself has no ethical significance. Fourthly, the most mutual opinions in favour
of the policy are unacceptable (Keown, 2018).

EUTHANASIA
6
References
Annadurai, K., Danasekaran, R., & Mani, G. (2014). 'Euthanasia: Right to die with
dignity'. Journal of family medicine and primary care, 3(4), 477.
Ebrahimi, N. (2012). The ethics of euthanasia. Aust Med Stud J, 3, 73-5.
Banović, B., & Turanjanin, V. (2014). Euthanasia: murder or not: a comparative
approach. Iranian journal of public health, 43(10), 1316.
Casey, D., & Houghton, C. (2010). Clarifying case study research: examples from
practice. Nurse Researcher, 17(3).
Keown, J. (2018). Euthanasia, ethics and public policy: an argument against legalisation.
Cambridge University Press.
Keown, J. (2018). Euthanasia, ethics and public policy: an argument against legalisation.
Cambridge University Press.
Landry, J. T., Foreman, T., & Kekewich, M. (2015). Ethical considerations in the regulation of
euthanasia and physician-assisted death in Canada. Health policy, 119(11), 1490-1498.
Quaghebeur, T., Dierckx de Casterlé, B., & Gastmans, C. (2009). Nursing and euthanasia: a
review of argument-based ethics literature. Nursing Ethics, 16(4), 466-486.
Radbruch, L., Leget, C., Bahr, P., Müller-Busch, C., Ellershaw, J., De Conno, F., ... & board
members of the EAPC. (2016). Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: a white paper
from the European Association for Palliative Care. Palliative Medicine, 30(2), 104-116.

EUTHANASIA
7
Sinha, V. K., Basu, S., & Sarkhel, S. (2012). Euthanasia: an Indian perspective. Indian Journal
of Psychiatry, 54(2), 177.
Terkamo-Moisio, A., Kvist, T., Kangasniemi, M., Laitila, T., Ryynänen, O. P., & Pietilä, A. M.
(2017). Nurses’ attitudes towards euthanasia in conflict with professional ethical
guidelines. Nursing Ethics, 24(1), 70-86.
Vizcarrondo, F. E. (2014). Neonatal euthanasia: the Groningen Protocol. The Linacre
Quarterly, 81(4), 388-392.