Wholly, as time has progressed, more regions have begun to abandon the use of the Hippocratic oath due to its lack of relevance to modern day society, and in turn, have hosted more progress towards euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, due to a stronger belief in its ethics. But there is still progress to make, and eventually, we hope to see a time where it will be accepted that the only humane choice in a euthanasia and PAS scenario, is to enable individuals who are suffering to have the right to decide to end their suffering.
Euthanasia and the Law By Ruby Qureshi, Year 10 North London Collegiate
L
aw in medicine. Perhaps not the most obvious link or intertwining, but so apparent in everyday life, and so often
missed. I would like to talk about a rather obvious case of law in medicine that has been debated for so many years, giving my take on the topic of euthanasia, as well as the medical and ethical laws that surround it. Euthanasia, defined as ‘the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma’ has been fought against, fought for and overall argued about for so long now. Going from the definition alone, to me, it sounds obvious that this is a perfectly ethically moral and smart thing to do. Painless killing, a suffering patient, what could be the reason that some may reject the idea so thoroughly. From a medical standpoint it is widely known that doctors would always want the best for the patients, so is euthanasia always the case? And
24