Legalizing Euthanasia In Canada

Words: 1449
Pages: 6
Open Document
In recent decades, the question of legalizing euthanasia has been a global controversy in medical, philosophic and human rights field. Several countries in Europe and in North and South America already allow doctors to help patients end their lives. However, in Canada, the law of legalizing euthanasia has not totally been passed by the Supreme Court of Canada yet. According to Paul C Webster’s article “Canada to legalise physician-assisted dying,” in February 2015, all nine judges in Canada's Supreme Court agreed to strike down the country's law against physician-assisted dying in a landmark ruling, but the law will remain in place for another 12 months for forging a new framework for physician-assisted dying in Canada. By examining euthanasia, …show more content…
Nevertheless, I will suggest that might not be a good reason. Because in order to protect patients’ human rights, it is better to relieve a patient from their pain and suffering by performing euthanasia which will do more good than harm. In the article “Euthanasia: 10 myths,” the author Richard DW Hain demonstrates that make euthanasia legal is equal to make it legal to kill people. Richard points out that “the ethical justification for euthanasia, on the other hand, comes from a broadly utilitarian idea that there is a life that can be taken by, or at the request of, those who judge it to be in some way not worth living”(799). He does not understand the purpose of euthanasia correctly. Patients desire mercy killing because they cannot face the severe suffering anymore. But in Richard’s article, he just considers if euthanasia is permissible, physicians will have rights to kill patients, and that means those patients are not worth living because their lives can be taken by physicians. Quite the opposite, patients require euthanasia because they want to die with dignity and they have rights to make the decision about when and how they should die. That’s why people called euthanasia “physician-assisted dying”, if euthanasia is equal to kill people, we should name euthanasia “physician-murdered dying”. In the article “The ethics of euthanasia,” Nargus …show more content…
According to the article “Care, Compassion, Respect, ” James Downar indicates that 84% Canadians believe a physician should assist patients who suffering from an incurable disease to end their lives. There are two famous cases in the field of challenging physician-assisted dying permissible in Canada. Gloria Taylor, a British Columbia woman who was diagnosed in 2009 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a specific disorder that involves the death of neurons in which patients first lose the ability to use their hands and feet, then the ability to walk, speak and, eventually, breathe. She is an essential person whose case has prompted B.C. Supreme Court to approve euthanasia. Gloria was the lead plaintiff in the case of advocate Canada's assisted-dying law and the only Canadian to win the right to get a doctor's help to die in 2011. Michael Friscolanti’s article “Gloria Jean Taylor” illustrates that Gloria wants to avoid an “ugly death”. She said, "I live in apprehension that my death will be slow, difficult, unpleasant, painful, undignified and inconsistent with the values and principles I have tried to live by”(106). Another human rights protector, Kay carter, who has an incurable disease, arguing that she has the right to ask her physician to terminate her life. But with assisted suicide still a crime in Canada, she finally travelled to Switzerland, where physician-assisted dying is
Show More

Related Documents: Legalizing Euthanasia In Canada

The Importance Of Legalizing Euthanasia In Canada

happiness and comfort and been replaced with cruel pain and sorrow? The answer; not a life worth living. Wanting to die with dignity, you request euthanasia, unfortunately it is not yet allowed, forcing you to die a painful and prolonged death. Its cases like these where you begin to wonder why euthanasia has only recently been legalized in Canada. As citizens of Canada, shouldn’t everyone have the right to a dignified death or should the terminally ill be left to suffer. And yet……… Is this fair, is this…

Words 981 - Pages 4

Hospital Bill Euthanasia

Euthanasia – ECONOMY Economics is the social science that deals the production and consumption of goods and services and the analysis of the commercial activities of a society (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2009). In the current world of rationed care and economic rationalism, Euthanasia’s availability is seen as cheaper, easier, rational choice on providing intensive support, and care for the most vulnerable (Wallace, 2013). Euthanasia refers to mercy killing of someone’s life to avert a painful death…

Words 600 - Pages 3

Doctor Assisted Suicide In Canada Essay

For many years, there has been a debate on the topic of doctor assisted suicide in Canada. The debate question is if a terminally ill person decides they wish to end their life, is it acceptable for others to assist them? Some are against it because of religious and moral reasons. Others are for it because of their respect for the dying. Physicians opinions are also mixed on the issue, they have different beliefs that separates relief from dying. Suicide is universally accepted to be a preventable…

Words 1588 - Pages 7

Persuasive Essay On Legalizing Assisted Suicide

The origins of the fight to legalize assisted suicide in Canada go back decades but only recently has it gained serious traction and at the centre of the arguments favouring the legalization of assisted suicide is how the refusing patients the right to die by way of assisted suicide violates the reasonable limits clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The purpose of invoking the reasonable limits clause in this fight is to show that not giving terminally ill patients the option…

Words 761 - Pages 4

Assisted Suicide Research Paper

Assisted suicide, or voluntary euthanasia, should be legalized because it will cause a person who is diagnosed with a long term illness to not have to suffer…

Words 1166 - Pages 5

Physician Assisted Suicide Persuasive Essay

brain and spinal cord, leading to the inability to eat, speak, move, and breath. The only prognosis is death. At the age of 42, wheelchair bound, aphasic, and unable to complete basic activities of daily living, Sue petitioned the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn a law that banned her right to consent to her own death, and in 1993, Sue’s plea was denied. Unable to endure the suffering any longer, Sue enlisted the help of an anonymous physician and ended her life, comfortably, in her own home. Physician…

Words 474 - Pages 2

The Right to Die Essay

giving medication to kill someone or also known as Euthanasia. So in order to help her out, her family would save money in order to be able to purchase the right drugs in order to perform Euthanasia themselves, unfortunately by the time they finally saved up enough money for the drugs, the disease had already taken the life of her. Now this might not seem like anything huge, but it’s a very common story and creates the controversy of Euthanasia. Patty was in terrible pain, she would lose the ability…

Words 1155 - Pages 5

ESSAY OUTLINE1

when a physician provides a patient with sleeping pills and information on its lethal dosage, while well aware the patients intent on committing suicide. This paper will highlight the main arguments as to why physician-assisted or the act of being euthanasia should be a right granted to all people suffering from a terminal illness and do not wish to live with the pain they have any longer. The reasons physician-assisted suicide should be legal is because it gives a terminally ill patient the right to…

Words 1175 - Pages 5