Euthanasua essay. Please review it and help me with grammar

I finish my essay and made a few changes to the paragraph that Mister Micawber tell me so please give me your opinion.

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How the medical community sees Euthanasia

Euthanasia is a very complex issue which generates a lot of controversy among humanity-mostly produced by the ignorance of the people- the objective of this paper is show the points of view of the medical community and some specific definitions of euthanasia.

The principal definition of euthanasia is: “The intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being for his or her alleged benefit; Non-voluntary euthanasia: When the person who is killed made no request and gave no consent; Involuntary euthanasia: When the person who is killed made an expressed wish to the contrary”(7). The euthanasia is sometimes confused with the assisted suicide; however in euthanasia the physician (or the person who “helps” the patient) performs the last action that will end the life of the patient, while in assisted suicide the patient performs the last action. Currently just two countries, the Netherlands and Belgium, and one state, Oregon US, allow euthanasia and/or assisted suicide.

First we will analyze the Netherlands case. In the Netherlands the use of euthanasia is reserved to patients with terminate ills or unbearable suffering of either mental or physical nature, however some doctors have told that they have already used this “treatment” on disabled newborns that suffer unbearable pain; however other doctors “who specialize in pain treatment have repeatedly pointed out that new pain control medications have effectively eliminated the pretext of uncontrollable pain as an excuse for euthanasia.”(euthanasia to kids). The spina bifida –a condition that some of infants killed suffered- is an illness that can be corrected sometimes by prenatal surgery.

In May of 2001 the world medical association emitted a resolution with two finals points: “1.- The World Medical Association reaffirms its strong belief that euthanasia is in conflict with basic ethical principles of medical practice, and 2.- The World Medical Association strongly encourages all National Medical Associations and physicians to refrain from participating in euthanasia, even if national law allows it or decriminalizes it under certain conditions.”(1), this resolution is more based in ethics issues than in scientific results because one of the basics fundaments of medicine, the Hippocrates’ oath says: “I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel;” (2)

The euthanasia doesn’t affect only the patient but also all the persons inside his “social circle”, to investigate the effects that euthanasia may have on the relative or friends of the patients Nikkie B Swarte, Mariji L van der Lee, Johanna G van der Bom, Jan van der Bout and Peter M Heintz realized an investigation between January 2000 and August 2001 with the following results:

“The relatives and friends of the euthanasia patients were less religious than the family and friends of the control patients, and their level of education was higher. Their relationship with the patients also differed: the family and friends of euthanasia patients consisted more of the subgroup defined as others (such as cousins, in-laws, or friends), whereas the family and friends of control patients consisted of more children and siblings”(3)

This information is very significant because when we start analyzing next the results of the investigation these facts will have a lot of relevancy because we can add that people with a higher level of education have a less reluctant feeling to euthanasia that people with less level of education and a higher level of religious feeling, with this statement I don’t want to say that religious people are less intelligent than none religious people but I do want to say that sometimes the ethics of each religion have a stronger effect in the decisions of people than their personal knowledge.

Other results of the investigation were: “Table 2(this table is shown later in the paper) shows the differences in grief symptoms, post-traumatic stress reactions, general wellbeing, and depressive symptoms between the bereaved relatives and friends of euthanasia patients and those of control patients. For all questionnaires except the Texas revised inventory of grief a high score means more symptoms or complaints. We found a small but non-significant difference between the groups for the symptom checklist (relatives and friends of euthanasia patients scoring somewhat better on general wellbeing), and both groups scored similarly on the depressive adjective checklist. However, the relatives and friends of euthanasia patients had significantly lower scores on the inventory of traumatic grief and impact of event scale score and higher scores on the Texas revised inventory of grief. The percentage of bereaved people who fulfilled the criteria of traumatic grief was twice as high in the control group as in the relatives and friends of euthanasia patients (5.7% v 2.1%), indicating that there was a clinically significant difference as well as a statistically significant one.

Educational level, the score on the Eysenck personality questionnaire neuroticism scale, and kinship were the most important confounders of the association between cause of death and grief symptoms and post-traumatic stress reactions. After adjustment for these factors, euthanasia was still associated with less severe symptoms and reactions. Adjustment for all other potential determinants tor traumatic grief did not change these findings (table 2). However, adjustment for "saying goodbye" to patients considerably weakened the association between cause of death and grief symptoms or post-traumatic stress reactions (table 2).”(3)

The next table shows the statistics results of the investigation:

HERE GOES A TABLE[endif]->

These results of this study show us that the grief developed after the dead of the patient turns into traumatic grief with more frequency on the relatives of patients that had a “natural death”, one of the causes of this situation may be that in euthanasia the time of dead of the patient is known with anticipation, and that anticipation could make the difference between a traumatic experience and a fast resignation and also the family and friends of the person know that the patient himself took the decision to perform the euthanasia. This study shows us that in terms of psychology the euthanasia produce a “healthier” response in the relatives and friends of the deceased to grief symptoms.

Although studies like this make a demonstration of some benefits of euthanasia the issue will still have a lot of controversy in the coming decade, because both groups (supporters and opponents of euthanasia) have a very strong link with the ideas they support, for example the moralist Nat Hentoff said that “No one is certain whether someone actually in a persistent vegetative state can feel what’s going on while being starved to death. If there is sensation, there is no more horrible way to die” (), his point is very understandable though currently is possible to know when a person in vegetative state have or not have brain activity in some cases is impossible to know if the patient have the ability to feel or not.

My conclusion for this paper is that the controversy will remain for some more years but inspired by ideals of individuals a not by the scientific benefit or disadvantage of euthanasia this issue will have to be analyzed very carefully, to find a decision that will lead humanity to a new era of medical ethics. From my personal point of view I must say that the decisions that people make through his life could only be performed by themselves a no one must interfere with those decisions, because everyone must have the power to define their way of life and in that power must exist the option of deciding when a how their life must end.

1. -The world medical association resolution on euthanasia.

2. - Hippocrates. Hippocrates Oath

3.-Nikkie B Swarte, Mariji L van der Lee, Johanna G van der Bom, Jan van der Bout, A Peter M Heintz British Medical Journal. (International edition). London: Jul 26, 2003. Vol.327, Iss. 7408; pg. 189

4. - Carol Numrich. Raise the issues: An integrated approach to critical thinking. USA: 2002. 2^nd ed.; pg. 178-179

5. - Dutch Euthanasia Doctor Admits to Killing 4 Newborns With Lethal Injections. GRONINGEN, April 27, 2005; LifeSiteNews.com

6. - Rita L. Marker and Kathi Hamlon. Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Frequently Asked Question. http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/

7. - http://www.euthanasia.com/definitions.html