Research Paper on:
Terminally Ill Assistance and Euthanasia

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
there has been the resurgence of the topic of euthanasia (Allen, 2000). This is an emotive subject that many see as morally subjective at best, and the legislation or murder  or suicide at worst. However, in looking at this it is often the impact on society that is considered, with the fears of the way that legal euthanasia will devalue  human life, and how it may be misused. Public policy may be a sound reason for maintaining the ban. But to gain a balanced picture we also need to consider  why there are many who are in favour of euthanasia, including the terminally ill, such as Diane Petty. To continue this debate, firstly we need to determine what we  mean by euthanasia. Euthanasia has many different definitions, it is the act of ending a life before the natural course of events. In most definitions this requires a positive action  to bring this about, such as an injection or the ingestion of drugs, However, in some definitions there is also the ability to achieve this with the withholding of treatment  to those who are ill. However, this is less clear, and as such we will not include the cessation of treatment as a matter that is automatically seen as euthanasia.  If we consider the case of Diane Petty we may see why it was that she sought to end her life. Diane Pretty was a 42 year old Luton woman  suffering from incurable motor neurone, who sought to gain legal immunity for her husband if he helped her commit suicide when she no longer felt she could continue. Her action  was against the Director of Public Prosecutions decision that he would not grant immunity (Gerrard, 2001). The arguments that brought this case about were due to the implementation of