Is Killing Worse Than Letting Die?.
" Cruelty and despair can be suffered not only at the hand of man, but at the hand of nature in circumstances of illness, particularly terminal illness. ".
Why does society find killing wrong, or for some if not always wrong, then only can it be justified in special circumstances, say in a war or in self defence. Why can killing not be justified in the case of compassion, in the case of a mercy-killing like euthanasia.
My project is investigating euthanasia, the bringing about of a gentle and easy death. The word which was derived from the combination of Greek words, "Eu" and "Thanatos" means good death.
I am looking in particular at the moral, medical and religious views, and how they compare and contrast with one another. Since there are many varied views on the subject of euthanasia, I will unfortunately not be able to cover them all in this project.
The question I will be trying to answer is, " Is killing always worse than letting die." .
My project will be covering the topics of moral views, medical views, religious views, views of different organisations, and the publics view.
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Is killing Worse Than Letting Die.
When we hear of someone Killing another person we assume that it is a deliberate act. It could be through murder or something like that but in this context it is through taking direct steps to end a terminally ill persons life. Letting die is a different concept. It refers to situations where no direct steps are taken to save a persons life but instead nature is allowed to take its course and the person is allowed to die.
The issue here is which one, in a moral sense, is worse than the other. To set out to kill a person might seem a morally wrong act but is it wrong if it relieves a persons suffering? In this sense it may be that Killing is a morally correct act whilst standing by and deliberately prolonging the agony could be seen as morally wrong.