Euthanasia: When Life Is To Be Feared More Than Death

Part I of Essay
…the elderly patients…are comatose. They weigh practically nothing. Their skin hangs in heavy folds on their skeletons. ‘These patients must be fed through gastric tubes pushed down their throats,’ Dr. Peter Haemmerli explains, and that can make even comatose patients retc ....

Part II of Essay
.... suffering from incurable conditions or diseases. The word “euthanasia” is generally also applied to cases in which the doctor withdraws the machines or drugs, which are keeping the patient alive, and thus allows the patient to die naturally. Euthanasia ends pain mercifully and easily. It is used when the pain of degradation of life or the pain of a terminal disease is greater than the pain of death. In these cases death is not the nightmare experienced in war, but rather an alternative to endless pain. “At times we must look at death as a ....