The matter of euthanasia continues to be one of the most controversial questions all over the world. During many years, people argue about different facts that can either support euthanasia or forbid it. Some people will say that euthanasia is an inhuman way of “taking care” of a person who suffers. But, let’s look at the etymology of this word. According to Josef Kuře’s study we found following definition:
Euthanasia is a Greek word that consists of a prefix ‘eu’ which has a meaning ‘good’ and a word ‘thanatos’ which means ‘death’. So far as adverbs in Greek are polysemantic, we can interpret it in different ways ‘nice death’, ‘beautiful death’ and so on (p. 4).
In the course of time even the meaning ‘good death’ was understood and explained in a lot of different ways. Let’s see some of them:
1. The concept of euthanasia in Antiquity was close to the definition of nаtural deаth. They tried to avoid medical interference.
2. The classical concept of ‘a good or nice dеаth’ accepted a person as an owner of his life with all the responsibilities and consequence that is why he could end his life voluntary.
3. In 17th – 19th centuries the concept dealt with a meaning of euthanasia as a death with a help of medicine.
4. During the World War II this concept had a meaning of a forced dеаth to the people of different genetics or race. It was practiced by Nаzis (Josеf Kuře, 2011, p. 25-26).
With the help of topic sentence, we show an argumentativeness of the matter of euthanasia. Also, I reveal that fact that people all over the world are arguing about this and bring forward their ideas about euthanasia.
The quotation and the paraphrased paragraph help to describe the attitude and understanding of people towards this concept in the course of time.
Original Source Text
Various historical meanings of the term ‘euthanasia’
As a summary of the previous research, the main typologies of good death as they appear through history are provided below.
1. Easy, quick and serene (natural) death. Suetonius’ description of the death of Augustus serves as an example. This concept can be found from Antiquity to the present. However this understanding of euthanasia as a peaceful, painless and swift death is not the predominant approach in the present. Furthermore a contemporary medical death is no longer perceived as a natural death.
2. Voluntary termination of life by oneself in a situation when living holds no value or death seems to be the lesser of two evils (and the option to die seems to be the lesser evil). The classical example is suicide (autothanatos) as an expression of autonomy, control over one’s life, and responsibility towards oneself and towards society.
3. Medical accompaniment of a dying person (easing pain, human support, without the possibility to prolong life). As an example the euthanasia exteriorias proposed by Francis Bacon can be given. This concept can be found from Antiquity until the late 19th century, being the main concept of euthanasia in the period between the 17th and late 19th centuries.
4. Involuntary termination of life of “unfit” people (based on genetics or race). A specific example for this type of good death is the eugenic euthanasia as it was practiced under the Nazi regime during World War II.
References
Josef Kuře,. (2011). Euthanasia - The "Good Death" Controversy in Humans and Animals. INTECH Open Access Publisher, 4, 25-26.
