In passive euthanasia, by withholding intravenous feedings, medications, surgery, a pacemaker, or a respirator, the doctor can let the patient die of the underlying disease. ... The medical experience has taught that the incurable man may ask for his end under the state of unbearable suffering, but when his pains shrink or stop, life reappears and the appeal is now for its preservation and not for its ending. ...
The Right to Die: The Legalization of Euthanasia Christiaan Barnard, a South African cardiac surgeon, once said, "I have never seen any nobility in a patient's thrashing around all night in a sweat-soaked bed, trying to escape from the pain that torments him day and night" (Walker 18). Should a...
This so called "mercy killing" gives the patient a chance to escape potentially long-term suffering and misery resulting from terminal diseases and conditions that are hurting and or slowly killing the patient. This method of death also gives the individual a chance to decide when to end his or her life, by committing suicide in a peaceful manner rather than waiting through prolonged and continuous periods of suffering from the disease that it is killing him or her. ...
