Death with Dignity

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ASSIGNMENT FOR eTHICS IN HEALTHCARE | Death with Dignity | Choosing the End of Life | | Tamara Crosby | 9/4/2012 |

Death with Dignity: Choosing the End of Life
Thesis: Is the fear of living an incomplete and possibly painful life a reason to bring your life to an end? Does this fear give us the authority to be masters of our own fate and end our own life before we and the ones we love suffer? 1. The beginnings of physician assisted suicide. a. Dr Kevorkian b. The first to use the method. c. The Death with Dignity National Center 2. Oregon state and Washington state legalizing the method. d. The legal way the process is suppose to be administered. e. The drugs that are prescribed. …show more content…

Killick Millard. The Voluntary Euthanasia Society was founded in England and put a bill before the House of Lords which was defeated in 1936. The first society formed in America was in 1938. Originally named the National Society for the Legalization of Euthanasia it changed its name to Euthanasia Society of America. It was funded by Mrs. R. L. Mitchell who partnered with Charles Francis Potter. They were inspired by the first society formed in England. The society’s members were made of several eugenicists.
Eugenics and euthanasia were blended together with the Euthanasia Society of America due to the members, but they are different in meaning and purpose. Eugenics concerns are birth control, social planning, preventive medicine, and the study of heredity. Euthanasia is the mercy killing of the terminally ill or life afflicted individual.
In 1937, Senator John Comstock of Nebraska, wrote the Voluntary Euthanasia Act. It received some notoriety at the time but was never voted on.
Euthanasia hit a downward spiral during World War II. It became a dark cloud because of Hitler and lost the meaning of what euthanacist were trying to explain. Everyone was focusing on the Nazi mass euthanization of the mentally ill, the old, epileptics, schizophrenics, cripples, criminals, orphans, and the racially undesirable. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed during the Aktion T-4 program or sent to the gas chambers. Some were just left to starve

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