Should euthanasia be permitted?

We will start speaking about euthanasia from the perspective of the patient’s family.

Euthanasia: act or omission by the physician or another person with intent to cause death of the terminal patient or highly dependent, for compassion and to eliminate any pain.

All legal systems accept to some extent, the right of families to decide for the patient or who is not able to express their will by itself.

In the family, this decision about euthanasia causes a feeling or sense of insecurity, fear and even confrontation, very different and unrelated to, which suggests the idea of the word family … love solidarity and generosity.

In a family where they choose to apply euthanasia to one of its members, the emotional and psychological tension that is generated when accepting a “homicide” can be and are indeed a source of problems and emotional instability, given the inevitable ethical connotations that behavior causes.

Finally, I would say that both patient that can allow to express their will by itself, as in the contrary case along with their families have all the right to refuse to prolong an artificial life.

After that we would like to talk about the current position about euthanasia in the political parties.

We all know the famous case of Ramon Sampedro and his desire to die in peace in order to avoid family’s pain and his own. There was a great controversy among politicians to allow or not this praxis. His petition was denied and he began a personal crusade against the system to get the right towards a dignified death.

Ramon thought he had earned that the opportunity to guide his life and his petitions but, suddenly, he was involved into a large battle against politics. Then, this war became sad, hard and too long.
Once he got his goal and died in front of a camera, Ramona Maneiro was arrested due to her helping Ramon in this way. However, she was released for lack of evidences.
Today, Euthanasia seems to be still an illegal practice for politicians and they don’t think that no one has his owns rights to die. Definitely this is like a tightrope where the points of view from what society and the governors seems to go in different ways.

We cannot forget talking about the Euthanasia from the religious point of view.

A lot of religious confessions, as the Christians and Jews, consider that only God gives life and only He can remove it, so euthanasia is considered a rejection of the sovereignty of God.

The Catholic Church considers the euthanasia as a way of homicide, because it means that a man kills to another man in a deliberate factor also with the omission of the necessary attentions and care.

In this way, the Catholic Church believes it is not justifiable to kill a patient not to see him suffer, even if the patient asks us to do it. Neither the patient, the doctor or the family members have the power to decide the death of a person. He has not the power to choose the place and the time of his death, because that man has not the absolute power over his person and his death.

Members of the Catholic Church have said that it is necessary to reaffirm that nobody can authorize the death of a human being, it be a fetus, embryo, child, adult, old man or incurably ill. No authority can legitimately impose or permit it. No one can say that life is more or less plenty depending of the stage of the full healthy. All life deserves to be lived.
The Pope John Paul II indicates that the euthanasia is a serious violation of God’s Law because it means the deliberate and morally unacceptable elimination of a human being. Also, the Pope Benedict XVI has declare himself contrary to the euthanasia in a letter dated 2004 to Washington’s Archbishop.

The Lutherans and Anglicans also oppose to the euthanasia, but sometimes they reconsider this option in individual cases. The Islam forbids absolutely the euthanasia, because the life is a heavenly gift to protect at maximum. The end of the life it is determined only by God.

And finally there is the medical standpoint: If we go to the approaches of euthanasia from a medical perspective, we can find that all the points of view can be summarized two big positions:
There are those who agree with it, based on assisting the patient on his right to decide when their life is under mechanical maintenance, trying to avoid the suffering that entails.

On the other hand, there are a lot of physicians who defend that life is a Fundamental right, in order to avoid such a practice, this is called conscience objection.

Beyond any moral conflict, we find that active euthanasia is, by now, a crime in most European countries. Except in Netherlands and Belgium where they meet two conditions: prolonged and unbearable suffering or incurable and serious disease.

In spite of the legal regulation, and it is something in what the individual and communal moral take precedence, any doctor can refuse to do so for reasons of conscience.

Euthanasia may be active (produce the death without pain through medical actions) or passive (not being treated to an illness). We can find non-voluntary euthanasia (without patient consent) and involuntary (against the wishes of the patient), but this two cases are considered crimes of homicide.
This is an issue that currently is extremely controversial, because there are many personal, religious, culture reasons to defend one or the other standpoint.

Belén Blasco, Jesús García, Mary Rincón, Sergi Nicolás.