requirements are followed the chances of prosecution are very slim. It is said that terminal illness accompanied by pain is often what makes people want to decide on euthanasia. When death is inevitable and the pain is not tolerable, patients might request euthanasia. “The presumption that patients who are in agonizing pain ask for euthanasia as a last resort is correct, but the reverse assumption that with proper pain treatment a patient never will ask for euthanasia is incorrect”, stated Dr. Peter Admiraal, an anesthesiologist who was the first physician in the Netherlands to speak openly about euthanasia. He also stated that “the main reasons patients request euthanasia are the loss of dignity that may accompany the final stages of terminal illness and the acceptance that death cannot be avoided.” Dr. Admiraal says pain is rarely a reason for euthanasia. In his hospital when a person decides on euthanasia, they try to do things in hope that euthanasia may be avoided. Some of the things that are done is they make the patient feel more comfortable then a “team of people talk to the patient.” In the end though, the decision is totally up to the patient.In the book Killing and Letting Die I read about a situation where a person would rather die then live in unbearable pain that was totally consuming him. The situation is, A patient who is dying of incurable cancer of theThroat is in terrible pain, which can no longer beSatisfactorily alleviated. He is certain to die withinA few days, even if present treatment is continued,But he does not want to go on living for those daysSince the pain is unbearable. So he aks the doctorFor an end to it (PP 113).It also states in this book that there can be two types of effects to this case. “If one simply withholds treatment, it may take the patient longer to die, and so he may suffer more than he would if a more direct action were taken and a lethal injection ...
