Exam 10: Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide

An argument against euthanasia asserting that mercy killing would involve treating persons as mere things and of no more value than a beast is:

________ euthanasia is mercy killing at the patient's request.

Directly or indirectly bringing about the death of another person for that person's sake is known as:

________ is the killing of a person by the person's own hand with the help of a physician.

If you believe that there is no moral difference between killing someone and letting someone die,you might reason that:

If someone argues that euthanasia is permissible because it maximizes happiness,she would be taking a ________ view of the matter.

If you were an American physician who accepted the active-passive distinction,you would also likely believe that:

Some opponents of active euthanasia argue that euthanasia is uncalled for;a dying patient in the grip of unimaginable pain,for example,does not have to be killed to escape her agony.Modern medicine offers dying patients unprecedented levels of pain relief.A common reply to this argument is:

It is the case that ________ is legal and widely believed to be morally acceptable.

In 2002,the eighty-six-year-old war hero Admiral Chester W.Nimitz Jr. ,in a suicide pact with his eighty-nine-year-old wife,ended his life with an overdose of sleeping pills.According to a news report,"Having lost 30 pounds from a stomach disorder,suffering from congestive heart failure and in constant back pain,the admiral had been determined to dictate the hour of his death.His wife,who suffered from osteoporosis so severe her bones were breaking,had gone blind.She had no desire to live without her husband." Assuming this is an accurate account of Admiral Nimitz's motivations,to what moral principle did he appeal to justify taking his own life?

The principle of autonomy (the right of self-determination)can be used to argue for:

Consider this rule-utilitarian argument against legalizing euthanasia: Passing a law to permit active voluntary euthanasia would inevitably lead to abuses such as more frequent use of nonvoluntary euthanasia and unnecessary killing;therefore,no such law should be passed.Such an argument is characterized as:

It is likely that active euthanasia would be used at least occasionally in a hospice guided by:

The principle of ________ says that if we are in a position to ease the agony of another and we can do so without excessive cost to ourselves,we should try to render aid.

According to the dominant reading of natural law theory,euthanasia is wrong primarily because:

A key premise in the argument for active euthanasia is that the right of self-determination includes the right of competent persons to decide the manner of their dying.This premise is:

The idea that an individual is dead when all brain functions permanently stop is called the ________ notion of death.

________ is allowing someone to die by NOT doing something-by withholding or withdrawing measures necessary for sustaining life.

In ________,others besides the patient choose euthanasia for her because she is not competent and has left no instructions regarding her end-of-life preferences.

________ involves taking a direct action to kill someone,to carry out a mercy killing.