Voluntary euthanasia refers to the action carried out at the patients request (with informed consent) to end the

patients life. This, however, presents problems in itself because it is not always easy to determine if the decision was un-coerced or rationally made. If someone does not explicitly request euthanasia, or if someone had clearly expressed a wish to live as long as possible, whatever the circumstances, euthanasia in such cases would be involuntary. Involuntary euthanasia refers to a third party taking a patients life without the informed consent of the patient. The third category, non-voluntary, could refer to newborn babies, comatose or severely brain-damaged adults who have lost the capacity to request or refuse euthanasia or who are incompetent to give a consent. Some have argued that the boundary between voluntary and non-voluntary euthanasia is so very thin and fragile, that it hardly exists. There is a moral right to die with dignity (may be used to legitimize physician-assisted suicide). Those in favour of active euthanasia insist that a slow, painful and merciless death is not a dignified death and that euthanasia is therefore a necessary means to guarantee a dignified death. The elderly are often grouped in this category. They may ask what is there to look forward to? and the answer often seems to be a pattern of growing dependence and degeneration till total helplessness results. This, some feel, is the demise of all dignity. In view of the moral right to die with dignity, there is widespread revulsion at the medicalization of death. Some argue death is no longer experienced as a natural part of life. People dread a twilight life tethered to feeding tubes or respirators. People used to die at home, in the bosom of their families, surrounded by their own belongings and photographs and furniture. Now they die in institutions, amongst strangers and alien technology. Proponents of euthanasia have therefore asked, could euthanasia offer a kindly alternative to the ultimate facelessness of dying amidst an inhuman mass of machinery? Moreover, Western liberation has so emphasized the rights of the individual, which we have come to believe that we should be masters of our own fate, including our own death. The patient whether handicapped, elderly or incurably ill has certain rights, including having privacy and dignity maintained. The English House of Lords held that artificial feeding could be withdrawn from a young man who had been a victim of crushing at the Hillsborough football match. It was his parents who sought to end his life-sustaining treatment as Bland lacked the capacity to decide for himself as he had been in a PVS for over three years. The Bland judgment described treatment that would not benefit a patient as medically futile.

1. It is an act of mercy to the suffering family who also suffer psychological pain. Kung cautions that human care and concern are needed not only for the patient but also for their family and friends. 2. It relieves the family of heavy financial strain. 3. It relieves society of a great social burden. As medical costs soar and the number of elderly increases in society, the burden of caring for the suffering increases. The principle of the common good and self-love, also used by theologians, against euthanasia are worth examining. The principle of the common good challenges the anti-social tendencies of unbounded individual freedom. When the practice of euthanasia is scrutinized in the light of the common good, then a number of major concerns become apparent. One of the key factors in resistance to the necessity for euthanasia comes from the hospice movement. It has created an environment, where the secrecy and, with that, the fear of death has been diminished. Indeed, less than four per cent in a recent survey of hospice patients said that they would be in favour of euthanasia. Popular demand for euthanasia intensifies year by year. Both public debate and private anguish are stirred by emotive portrayals of prolonged and avoidable suffering at the end of life. The Christian arguments which I have outlined above are under constant review. Margaret Whipp, for example has drawn attention to the problem of divine sovereignty in the euthanasia debate, arguing that an authoritarian view of divine sovereignty is entirely alien to modern secular thinking and increasingly unattractive to many contemporary Christian believers. She further argues that it is easy to extol the virtues of acceptance and courage in the face of suffering when the advice given is given condescendingly to others! Debates on these issues connected to euthanasia as well as others, will undoubtedly continue. On 10 December 1997 the Houses of Parliament discussed the legalizing or decriminalizing of physician-assisted suicide (PAS). Euthanasia may well have prevented us seeing this day if it was legal in the UK. Today, however, she has recently spent nine days on a life-support machine after suffering from a heart attack and renal failure, her quality of life has deteriorated and she is in a lot of pain. Thankfully, I was never faced with the ordeal of having to switch off her life-support machine. A compassionate response, I feel, to the distress that demands euthanasia does not lie in so-called mercy-killing which solves the problem of caring by ceasing to care.

Bibliography

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