Euthanasia as an Act of Love Essay

In the article “Offering Euthanasia can be an Act of Love”, Humphrey puts up an argument in support of euthanasia. Euthanasia refers to mercy killing, which is the painless killing of a terminally ill person in order to spare him/her from pain and troubles arising from the illness. Humphrey rightly points out the main controversies brought by euthanasia and attempts to propose a way forward. The author focuses on present and past happenings that have influenced the arguments around the practice. One of the crucial developments cited is the decision by the American Medical Association (AMA) to acknowledge that artificial feeding of patients can be stopped in case the patient is “hopelessly comatose.” This paper will shed more light on the practice of euthanasia by reacting to the various arguments cited by Humphrey.Euthanasia as an Act of Love Essay

The American Medical Association’s decision to allow stopping of artificial feeding to hopelessly comatose patients is welcome. As Humphrey points out, those against this development rely on fallacies and nothing else. For instance, a critical look at the argument that food comes from God and no one has a right to stop another from feeding reveals shortsightedness. Such arguments fail to acknowledge that the whole process of feeding a terminally ill comatose patient is not natural, but dependent on fabricated technologies. If this patient could have been left to nature, he/she could have died a long time ago. Euthanasia borrows from this idea by suggesting that this person should be peacefully left to die if all other alternatives have been exhausted. Equating euthanasia to Nazism is unfounded.Euthanasia as an Act of Love Essay