Mercy Killing Physician Assisted Suicide Euthanasia Essay

Euthanasia remains one of the most contentious issues in bioethics, with implications for healthcare practice, law, and public policy. Even when religious arguments are excluded from the debate, it is difficult to determine how healthcare workers and policymakers should consider the complex issues surrounding how a person dies and what situational variables to take into account. Complicating the issue is how to define euthanasia, differentiate between active and passive types of euthanasia, and distinguish it from physician-assisted suicide. When considered from a utilitarian perspective, euthanasia can be considered an ethical practice under certain circumstances but not others. Unlike deontological or duty-based ethical theories, utilitarianism allows for flexibility in making decisions related to the right to die with dignity. Utilitarianism generally supports euthanasia for three main reasons. The first is the principle of patient autonomy. The second is the principle of harm reduction. The third is the healthcare principle of beneficence, the obligation to maximize patient wellbeing.

Utilitarianism is an ethical framework highly relevant to a secular society. Although not comprehensive in scope, utilitarianism is nevertheless flexible enough to offer intelligent insight into how to resolve the euthanasia debate. Rule-based utilitarianism can either support or refute the morality of euthanasia, either by showing that euthanasia could lead to a slippery slope in which physicians have too much power over the lives of others; or by showing that legal euthanasia is the only means to preserve autonomy and individual rights (Hooker). When considering how to frame euthanasia using utilitarianism, it is critical to differentiate between the types of euthanasia and to also resist the temptation to oversimplify the issue by resorting to universalities. No two people and no two situations are equal, which is why it would be unfair to claim that euthanasia is always right or always wrong. However, utilitarian approaches do tend to favor a view that values the reduction of suffering both for the individual and for society as a whole (Vaughn 604). Some, if not most, types of euthanasia clearly do alleviate pain and suffering. In fact, the text defines euthanasia as facilitated death “for that person’s sake,” (Vaughn 604). Therefore, utilitarianism does generally support the moral efficacy of euthanasia.

As convenient as it may be to apply utilitarianism to resolving the bioethical problem of euthanasia, utilitarianism can lead to abuses of power and other types of injustice. If euthanasia is deemed categorically acceptable under the tenets of utilitarianism, then it would be possible to argue that any individual who is being financially or emotionally burdensome to family members would lack utility. That person can also be framed as a burden to society. A central tenet of utilitarianism is doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Therefore, euthanasia would be used far too often to end the lives of those who are believed to be less useful than other people.

Rule-based utilitarianism switches the focus of utility away…