A Case for Active Euthanasia You hope the day never comes. Your spouse has been in ICU for three weeks, and the doctor has told you there is severe irreversible brain damage. The family is called for a meeting with the doctor to make a very hard decision. All options are addressed. The decision is made to remove all IVs, feeding tubes, and the ventilator. Weepy and grief-stricken, you sign a consent form, and sit by the bed for a day or two as your spouse passes away peacefully. This is not what really happens. Removing food and water from someone in a hopeless situation is not putting them out of their misery. Instead its putting them into misery, the misery of dying in an excruciating manner. Dying this way could not possibly be considered a peaceful death. It can take five to twenty-one days for someone to die of dehydration after the IVs and feeding tubes are removed. In that time, the mouth dries out, the tongue becomes swollen, eyes sink back into their sockets, and the lining of the nose cracks and bleeds. Also, urine becomes concentrated and burns the bladder, the stomach lining dries out which causes vomiting, hypothermia develops, brain cells begin to dry out which causes convulsions, and the respiratory tract dries out causing thick secretions, which can plug the lungs and cause death. There is nothing dignified about this kind of death. To leave someone on life support until their liver, kidneys, and pancreas fail should not be an option either. The active termination of an individual's life should be considered a positive action when its intention is to relieve irreversible suffering. We need to address the way much of society views passive euthanasia as acceptable and active euthanasia as unacceptable. Looking not at the religious or moral issues, but of the needs of the patient, active euthanasia should be considered acceptable if the right precautions are taken. The act of active euthanasia ends the harm of an intracta...
