END OF LIFE

End of Life

The medical practice of deliberately ending the life of a patient with terminal illness in order to relieve the patient from suffering and pain is called End of life or Euthanasia. If a patient's body is unable to take up food normally, and when feeding becomes a burden for a patients system then doctors and courts follow the ethical principle for hydration and nutrition as any other medical sustainment treatments for life. In case a patient's life sustainment treatment serves as a burden as in there are no benefits of prolonging a patient's life then the treatment should be stopped even if it may result in the death of the patient.

The debate related to physician assisted suicide or euthanasia develops a lot of stir emotions among people either its advocating the cause or opposing it. It is very heart gripping to witnesses loved one in a situation that is causing them unendurable pain. The terminal answer of this question can be determined through the ethical and legal issues related to the cause.

History of End of Life

As per N.D.A Kemp, a historian the debate for euthanasia started in the early 1870's (Nick K., 2002) but its presence and practicing has been followed long before in the Rome and Ancient Greece. It is fairly obvious from the example of hemlock who was employed for hastening death in the Island of Kea. The techniques were supported by famous historian leaders like Plato, Socrates and Seneca (the Elder). The End of Life tradition has been strongly critiqued by the Judeo Christian, the famous Thomas Aquinas contradicted the practice of Euthanasia, and he said it was against human survival to hasten the death of an individual (Manning, M., 2010). The words of Thomas Aquinas were supported by the Francois Ranchin (1565-1641), he was French professor and physician of medicine, also by Micheal Boudewijns (1601-1681) a teacher and physician (Stolberg, M., 2007). In this era, there were supporters of euthanasia present as well the most prominent name is John Donne in the year 1962 (Mannes, M., 1975), due to which euthanasia was proacticed commonly.

In the year 1678, Caspar Questel published an essay, that raised a crucial debate on the topic of life preservation during euthanasia. Carpas laid down the customs that were needed to apply when the doctors are implying hasten death of the dying person. He disregarded the use of sudden removal of pillow which was mean to fasten the procedure of death, according to him it was against the laws of Nature and God. The debate was supported by many historian such as Veit Riedlin, Johann Georg Krünitz and Philipp Jakob Spener (Stolberg, M., 2007). The techniques used to hasten death continued to be followed such as suffocating the patient, bleeding and shifting the patient to cold ground from their bed (Stolberg, M., 2007).

Protestantism considered euthanasia and suicide very acceptable, during the age of enlightenment to endorse euthanasia he wrote that, different cultures are following different approaches, suicide might be ...