Euthanasia is one of the most important public policy issues being debated today. Euthanasia means intentionally making someone die, rather than allowing that person to die naturally. The intention for using euthanasia is to stop the suffering of a patient that has an incurable disease or is in intolerable suffering. The use of euthanasia must be stopped. Newborns and elderly are being killed, active and passive euthanasia are being used with a lack of moral values, making death a good thing to do. The medical profession has generally been caught in the middle of the social controversies that rage over the use of euthanasia. Government and religious groups, as well as the medical profession itself, agree that physicians are not required to use any extreme means to prolong the life of the terminally ill. What extreme means is usually left to the discretion of the patient's family. This is why many innocent lives are being taken. Most of them are the newborns and the elderly. When a child is born with certain problems, such as Down syndrome with a life threatening deformity they are left to die. Their parents and doctors think they will have a life of suffering. Just because a newborn is deformed does not mean it will suffer during his lifetime. This is totally unethical and irresponsible. In the United States of America these children can enter one of many disability programs that can help them surpass their problems so they can have a better life. If society started to kill children because they were born with a disability many great minds would be wasted. For example, what if the parents of the famous scientist Stephen Hawking had decided to kill their newborn son, who was born with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable disease of the nervous system. All the technology based on his theories would have never existed.When it comes to the elderly this seems to happen too. Most of them have problems that can be treated and some o...
