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counsel any such thing" (Hippocratic Oath). Yet, Hospice care often administers pain relievers to patients in great pain, knowing the dosage is lethal and this is considered legal and appropriate according to euthanasia.com.
The main point to be remembered out of all of this is intent. If a person requests euthanasia multiple times even after counseling and a "cooling off" period then it is likely the person will attempt suicide herself. Perhaps she will shoot herself or jump from a building or overdose on pills. Whatever the method, without proper supervision, the attempt may fail and leave her with brain damage, crippled for life or suffering from constant physical pain. PAS will at least ensure she will die a quick and relatively painless death. The intent, then, is humane treatment.

If a patient is brain dead and being kept alive on life support equipment, but all restorative procedures have failed, the intent of PAS is to allow a humane death. If the patient has an incurable, debilitating illness or injury and wishes to die sooner rather than in slow, humiliating, agonizing stages later, then it is the intent of PAS to provide that patient relief and a humane death.
Those who oppose euthanasia and PAS seem to believe there is nothing worse than death and for them maybe that is true. If so, they should prepare a will stating that in the event that they receive third degree burns over seventy percent of their bodies, they would rather have "pain management" to deal with the constant feeling of burning alive rather than a humane release from a hopeless situation.
It is not simply enough to be alive; there must also be life. Life implies a transient quality far beyond a heartbeat and breathing. People describe monumental events as making them feel alive. Such events may be climbing a mountain, watching a child being born, flying, skydiving, or winning a competition. Some have argued that euthanasia and PAS devalues life, but it seems clear that when the human condition has reached the point that euthanasia and PAS is being considered, life has already lost its value.

Works Cited
Docker, Chris; The Scottish Voluntary Euthanasia Society "Euthanasia in Holland" .
"Euthanasia" Euthanasia.com 2007.
"Fight For Life On Death Row" Video
60 Minutes News 11/11/2007.
Hippocratic Oath
January 17, 1999.
National Institute of Mental Health
November 26, 2007.
"Religious Tolerance" Religioustolerance.org
2006-APR-16.

Learn more about this author, Jason Billingsley.
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