Euthanasia is the act of deliberately ending a person’s life to relieve suffering, whilst assisted suicide is the act of encouraging or providing someone with the means to end their life. Euthanasia can be described as active, whereby the person intervenes to end another person’s life, or passive, whereby the person withholds a treatment that is necessary to maintain life. Both euthanasia and assisted suicide are illegal in the UK, and are treated as either manslaughter or murder. However, as the debate regarding the legality of this issue is soon to be taken to court (again), what are the arguments for and against euthanasia?
One argument for euthanasia is patient autonomy. A patient has the right to make their own decisions, and surely should also be able to say where and when they wish to die.
Secondly, doctors should act in the best interests of the patient, a concept called beneficence. If a patient has a very poor quality of life and is experiencing physical and mental pain, it may be in the patient’s best interests for the doctor to commit euthanasia. However, it could be argued that the doctor is acting in the patient’s interests by allowing to continue living, as in some cases quality of life may see a dramatic improvement; for example, symptoms of pain may reduce, a new treatment may be ready for clinical trials, or an event in the patient’s family – perhaps a new born child – may make them decide life is worth living.
Similarly, doctors should not act in a way that causes harm to the patient; this is non-maleficence. Euthanasia and assisted suicide would directly violate this medical ethic, because ending the patient’s life is most certainly causing them harm.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide would also violate the last medical ethics pillar: justice. It is important that, as a society and a nation, we have laws that ensure our health service runs fairly and consistently throughout the UK. If doctors were to take justice into their own hands and decide for themselves whether euthanasia was important, this would create an unfair system where patients were treated differently.
Assimilating the arguments of these medical ethics clearly suggests that euthanasia and assisted suicide is currently an unethical practice in the UK.
Some people may argue that it is time for the law to change. Euthanasia is legal in some European countries and some states of America. Also, in the UK we authorise a select number of processes that could be considered as euthanasia; we authorise the DNR form, which could be considered as passive euthanasia as we allow a patient to die without supplying the life saving treatment they need. In addition, we authorise the use of palliative sedatives – sedatives that put a patient experiencing great pain to sleep for a while – that, whilst the patient does not die, could be considered as a form of active euthanasia.
However, I believe that the law should not change. Legalising voluntary euthanasia may be the first step of a slippery slope, as it could lead to the subsequent legalisation of non-voluntary and then involuntary euthanasia. Giving doctors the ability to end life could seriously harm doctor-patient relationships, as patients who are terminally ill may believe their doctor wants to end their life for their convenience. Furthermore, terminally ill patients may feel pressured into ending their life in order to not be a burden to other family members. For the good of society, I believe that the illegal status of euthanasia and assisted suicide is the best option for patients to have faith in their health services, and for doctors to confidently feel that they are meeting the implicit moral standards of the human race.
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