A considerable size of society is in favor of Euthanasia mostly because they feel that as a democratic country, we as free individuals, have the right to decide for ourselves whether or not it is our right to determine when to terminate someone's life. The stronger and more widely heldopinion is against Euthanasia primarily because society feels that it isgod's task to determine when one of his creations time has come, and we ashuman beings are in no position to behave as god and end someone's life.When humans take it upon themselves to shorten their lives or to haveothers to do it for them by withdrawing life-sustaining apparatus, theyplay god. They usurp the divine function, and interfere with the divineplan. Euthanasia is the practice of painlessly putting to death persons whohave incurable , painful, or distressing diseases or handicaps. It comesfrom the Greek words for 'good' and 'death', and is commonly called mercykilling. Voluntary euthanasia may occur when incurably ill persons asktheir physician, friend or relative , to put them to death. The patientsor their relatives may ask a doctor to withhold treatment and let them die.Many critics of the medical profession contend that too often doctors playgod on operating tables and in recovery rooms. They argue that no doctorshould be allowed to decide who lives and who dies. The issue of euthanasia is having a tremendous impact on medicine inthe United States today. It was only in the nineteenth century that theword came to be used in the sense of speeding up the process of dying andthe destruction of so-called useless lives. Today it is defined as thedeliberate ending of life of a person suffering from an incurable disease.A distinction is made between positive, or active, and negative, orpassive, euthanasia. Positive euthanasia is the deliberate ending of life;an action taken to cause death in a person. Negative euthanasia is definedas the withholding of life ...
