euthanasia
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Courts and moral philosophers alike have long accepted the
proposition that people have a right to refuse medical treatment they
find painful or difficult to bear, even if that refusal means certain
death. But an appellate court in California has gone one controversial
step further. (Walter 176)
It ruled that Elizabeth Bouvia, a cerebral palsy victim, had
an absolute right to refuse a life-sustaining feeding tube as part of
her privacy rights under the US and California constitutions. This was
the nation's most sweeping decision in perhaps the most controversial
realm of the rights explosion: the right to die...
As individuals and as a society, we have the positive
obligation to protect life. The second precept is that we have the
negative obligation not to destroy or injure human life directly,
especially the life of the innocent and invulnerable. It has been
reasoned that the protection of innocent life- and therefore,
opposition to abortion, murder, suicide, and euthanasia- pertains to
the common good of society.
Among the potential effects of a legalised practice of
euthanasia are the following:
"Increased fear of hospitals and doctors". Despite all the
efforts of health education, it seems there will always be a
transference of the patient's fear of illness from the illness to the
doctors and hospitals who treat it...