What Opinions do People have on Euthanasia

Introduction

This research report will investigate the topic euthanasia. Euthanasia is an act or practice were a doctor, that is allowed by law, kills a terminally ill person in a painless way so that the sick person gets peace. Euthanasia is only done by the terminally ill persons request. I choose euthanasia because I find this topic very interesting because there is so many pros and cons about it and it's a topic that you can find out alot about and I want to know more about it. I want to find out why people think of euthanasia as an ethical or an unethical thing. I want to understands humans differents opinions and meanings and find out why we have such different opinions that we cannot find a good solution to euthanasia. In this report i will also investigate the different opinions on the topic, both locally, nationally and globally. So over all this research report will contain information about euthanasia and why it is such a debated topic.

Locally Perspective on Euthanasia

In my hometown which is Aarhus, I want to look on what the people think about euthanasia and whether they think that it is a good law that it is not legal in Denmark. So I have asked a few people on their opinion. An older man I talked to on the street in the middle of Aarhus said that he thinks that it's a good idea that it stays illegal “because we humans have way to many different opinions about euthanasia that we can never find one solution to it. So in my eyes it's better to make it stay illegal because if we don't, people who don't support euthanasia would get really angry at the doctors, and it wouldn't be fair to them he says”. I also thought that it would be a really quite interesting to include a doctors opinion in my research report, because I wanted to know how the doctor felt and if he would like or dislike to have euthanasia legalized. So I contacted a danish doctor and he said that he is for euthanasia, because he fell for the patients and that it is their choice whether they want to continue living with the pain or if they want to stop the pain for getting worse and worse until they die. “ I do think that it would be really hard for me to say to a person that it is alright and that he or she can go to heaven, or if I have to say that he/she cant die because the person is not declared sick enough. It would be tough for me, but I do support all of my patients and their choices.” he says. By listening to the doctors I reliced how hard it must be to be the doctor that first of all has to talk with the person who wants euthanasia, and give them the right to die or not. And after that has to hand over the medicine to the ill person.

National Perspective on Euthanasia

Euthanasia is not legal in Denmark. Under the Danish law, euthanasia is not legal because it is considered as an act of killing a person. It's a really debated topic and some doctors in Denmark are risking prison because they help terminally ill person die, they do it because they are for euthanasia and wants to chance the laws of euthanasia in Denmark. They have their own group which is called doctors for active euthanasia. Their meaning with this group is that they think it isn't fair that people can't die in a probably way if they are terminally ill, instead of people doing suicide or jump out in front of a train if they don't want to live with their unbearable pain. But why is it that in many countries for example Denmark we give terminally ill animals the right to a peaceful dead, as soon as for example a old dog gets sick and the owner decides that it isn't fair for the ill dog to suffer till it dies by itself. Then the old dog gets a peacefully dead and get to go to heaven, at the veterinary clinic. Many people don't see animals and humans the same way, and people think that a human life is worth more than for example the old dog. But why do dogs get to have a peaceful dead if we can see that they are suffering and will never get any better, when humans can not choose it by themself if there's terminally illness is to hard to handle.

Globally Perspectives on Euthanasia

Only five countries in the world allows euthanasia, Belgium, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Canada. So euthanasia is only allowed in very few places in the world. And why is that? The reason why people have choose not to make it legal is because many countries see euthanasia as killing a person, and therefore think it is an unethical thing to do. But as said before a few countries has made it legal, Belgium for example made euthanasia legal in 2002 and they permits and regulates the ending of life by physicians on request by the individual person who wants to end their life based on the unbearable pain. In Belgium there was a story about a totally normal and healthy elderly lady, she choose to die because she didn't see the meaning of living in a day care center for old people, her days were the same everyday, she had even lost her own daughter. She didn't want to live any longer. She wanted a peaceful dead and to see her loved daughter again, in heaven this time. She wanted to get euthanasia and she was accepted by the doctors. And got her wish fulfilled . There was a lot of negative reactions to the doctors and people meant that he had killed a healthy old lady. He had he said, but based on her choice, the doctor says that the old lady wanted to die and she didn't feel happy in her live, so he wanted to help her. His opinion is that its peoples own choice, its own body and life and therefore her decision. If you then look at countries where there live a lot of buddhist, like Thailand, their opinion would be that euthanasia is like suicide, and also buddhist live by the thought of karma, which is a thought they have that when you die you get reborn to a new life, whose quality would be the results of their karma. This produces two problems. Problem number one is that we don't know if they next life would be even worse if they do euthanasia, and then it would be like wasting a life which was already better than their second one. Second problem is that shortening life interferes with the working out of karma, and that alters the karmic balance resulting from the shortening life. So they don't want to legalise euthanasia, based on the fact that they think it is unethical. The main problem for not legalise or legalise it is that people disagree and dont have the same opinion.

Conclusion

So what is the conclusion of this research report and what do I think we can do to this problem?. Well in my eyes there is not so much we can do about this problem since a lot of people have different views on this topic, and we humans cannot agree to a solution, because of the fact that there is so many human beings with different nationality, religion, opinions and so on. We can't come up with one good solution and that is why the right, wrongs and rules on euthanasia is so different from countries to countries. Therefore it is hard to find a conclusion but what I can conclude in my report is that there is so many things that has to happen before we can find out how to handle euthanasia. First of all we have to somehow, not precisely agree but we do have to have some common opinions so that we can try to figure out how to handle euthanasia without having such things as for example the danish doctor group who is risking ending up behind bars because they don't agree on the rules in Denmark. The only thing that bothers my mind is that animals can get euthanasia, when humans cannot. Even though not all people agree on the fact that euthanasia for animals is legal in most parts of the world, it is still made legal. So why can we not make euthanasia legal for human beings to?. I do think we should make it legal, but in a way so it's only the really terminally ill people who can be accepted for getting euthanasia and that it has to be considered and decided by lots of doctors before it can happen. So what I can conclude is that we all have to talk about it even more so that we can discuss about it and maybe we can find a better solution so that hopelessly sick people don't have to suffer like they do know when there is no opportunity in most countries. 

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