This week we learned about some of the ethical contemporary issues, which has been discussed around the world and there is no universal right or wrong about these things. Among the issues we discussed are the issue of cloning human beings, surrogacy, euthanasia, abortion and suicide.
Here I would like to focus just on the issue that are related to life and death like euthanasia, abortion and suicide. Euthanasia or in other words “mercy killing” refers to the act of one person generally a medical professional assisting a person who is undergoing pain or suffering to end his life and free him from his suffering. Abortion refers to the act of killing a fetus (unborn child). Suicide refers to the act of one person taking his own life.
Euthanasia involves taking the life of someone who is willing to die and requesting for it and sometimes on the request of the guardians if they are not in a condition to request. In some countries, euthanasia is allowed and doctors are allowed to pull the plug on patients with critical condition and those who are undergoing severe pain. The justification for doing this is that the person would be better off dead than alive as he is undergoing constant suffering while being alive. If so then does that mean that everyone also has the right to die? This also applies to suicide, as it is almost similar to euthanasia. However, in the case of euthanasia you are still taking the life of someone. The question that raises here is does anyone have the right to take the lives of anyone?
When it comes to abortion you are killing someone who has not even seen the light of this world, the poor child does not even have a say in the decision unlike in the cases of mercy killing where the patients request for their life to be taken.
The questions that arise here are that is it ethical to take the life of someone. What if the person will be better off dead than alive, what if he is going through extreme pain alive? What if the person does not want to live in this world anymore? What if the person we are talking of killing is not born into this world? Would these factors make any difference to weather it is ethical to kill the person.
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