arnard, at the World Euthanasia Conference, was quoted as saying, "I believe often that death is good medical treatment because it can achieve what all the medical advances and technology cannot achieve today and that is stop the suffering of the patient" (Battin, 1987, p. 21).A different version of the same argument is, doctors are not always responsible to do everything they can to save somebody. If a doctor's duty is to ease the pain of his patients, then why should this exclude the possibility of letting them die? If a patient has a terminal illness and is in great pain and the patient thinks they would rather die now than continue living with the pain, the doctor should be allowed to help. What about a person, who is in a vegetative state for a prolonged period of time with no hope of recovery, should the doctor do everything? Howard Caplan gives an example of this...I have on my census a man in his early 40s, left anaphasic triplegic by a motorcycle accident when he was19. For nearly a quarter of a century, while most of uswere working, raising children, reading, and otherwisegoing about our lives, he's been vegetating. Hisbiographical life ended with the crash. He can onlyarticulate - only make sounds to convey that he'shungry or wet. If he were to become acutely ill, Iwould prefer not to try saving him. I'd want to letpneumonia end it for him" (1987, p. 92).I believe that a doctor should do what he can up to a point. If a person is at the point where death is a blessing a doctor should not be forced to save a person if they go into cardiac arrest. Also it might be the patients decision for nothing to be done, in this case the doctor should do as instructed. Is euthanasia unethical? That is what the opposition argues. They preach that doctors too often play God on the operating tables and in the recovery rooms and doctors must always be on the side of life (Battin, 1987, p. 24). They say, "Life is to be preserved and suffering wa...
