The Prohibition Of Euthanasia Nursing

Essay
Nurses are facing many ethical issues every day in their professional life, which influence in nursing
decision making. These issues often related to patients cultural, beliefs and sometimes to patients
life conditions. In this paper I am going to focusing on one of the most important ethical issue, which
is euthanasia. In fact euthanasia is not a modern concept, because I found that the term euthanasia
is derived from two Greek word eu meaning good and thanatos meaning death a good death
(MVMA, 2007) It called also a mercy killing, but in some cultural it considered as a suicide. In
addition euthanasia became an important debate and a big ethical issue in nursing fields in the
recent days. Some professional care provider agrees with practicing euthanasia for many reasons,
such as prolonged suffering from irremediable pain, terminal diseases and for economic
consideration. However euthanasia is illegal practice and inhuman procedure. On my opinion
euthanasia should be prohibited, and all professional nurses should not practice a mercy killing.
It has been argued that euthanasia will be the best choice for patient who suffering from irremediable
pain. Under this case patients suffer from pain all the time, twenty four hour a day. Thus, they suffer
chronically from irreversible pain with no opportunity of recovery, which lead them to choose
euthanasia as a perfect choice. Because in their opinion euthanasia makes the death as painless
and distress free as possible. However the healthcare providers should support the life of patient
with incurable pain till the last breath. According to the American Society of Pain Management
Nurses (ASPMN, 2002):
The ANA statements assert that nurses are obligated to promote comfort and relief of pain as part of
comprehensive and compassionate end-of-life care, including, at times, the refusal or withdrawal of
life-sustaining treatments. The ANA Code for Nurses with Interpretive Statements (1985) and the
ethical traditions of our profession state that nurses should not participate in assisted suicide or
active euthanasia.
Farther more now a days there are many active strategies for a chronic pain treatment such as,
muscle relaxant, spinal cord stimulation, nerve blocks, and nerve dissection. Moreover health care
providers have to give a chance for patients to live the rest of their life. On my opinion we as
professional nurses should do everything in our power to ease the patients pain, and make them
comfortable as possible. But practicing euthanasia or helping the patients to die, is not an ethical
decision.
Another argument was euthanasia helps the patient to die with less sufferance from terminal
diseases. The argument assumes that euthanasia is riddance from a stat that will eventually end in
death anyway, because moribund patients can be so forlorn over their impending death that, they
hope to die with less racking. It claims that euthanasia should be an option given for terminally ill
patients because they dont have a chance to recovery comparing with another illness. It assumes
farther more that, terminally ill patients chose a mercy killing for their aware that inflicts with
irreversible disease, and their case will get progressively worse promptly. Almost of patients in this
condition thought that their body exists only for torture. However patients could possibly go on to live
along life if a cure found. On my opinion terminally ill patients dont live in a persistent state of
torture, because in recent days there are many modern treatments. Such as chemotherapy and
radiotherapy which can reduce the suffering, and improve the patients states, that make a
functional, happy life possible. In addition, euthanasia considered as a suicide, thus we as a nurses
should not be a part of practicing euthanasia or assisting suicide .According to Lidberter (2006):
Ethical directives can guide and direct the nurse who is caring for dying patients. Care of - the
terminally ill and dying should be done with professional and ethical deliberation. - - The code of
ethical conduct for nurses prohibits nurses from participating in assisted ----- suicide.
It could farther be asserted that euthanasia is a good option for economic consideration and to
reduce the familys sufferance. People said that euthanasia assists patients family on economic
condition, because the treatment for terminal illness likes cancer, or prolonged treatment for
incurable pain is very costly. A person can decide to forego treatment to avoid imposing a heavy
burden of care giving on family or friends. He may also stop treatment to relieve loved ones of the
emotional or economic distress of prolonged dying (Nimbalkar, 2007).It claims farther that
euthanasia is the best choice to decrease familys sufferance. That is because all the familys
members remain all the time with their patient and they feel in the same suffering. However I think
the Human life should not be ended for the sake of money. I agree that some people choose
euthanasia. But in fact they choose it as a coercive choice, because they come from poor families.
They think that their treatment and hospitalization will cost a lot of money which they cannot make it
in their lifetime. Thus they choose euthanasia without the real feeling, just for financial consideration.
In addition families should not feel that their patient as a huge burden, because the human life is
valuable more than money. Farther more the life is a golden right for everyone, for that consideration
the family cannot decide to end the life of their patient, because no one know when the patients life
will stop.