Euthanasia is the practise of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering.
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian moral philosopher and the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He wrote the book Animal Liberation (1975), in which he argues for vegetarianism, and the essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", which favours donating to help the global poor. For most of his career, he was a preference utilitarian, but he revealed in The Point of View of the Universe (2014), coauthored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, that he had become a hedonistic utilitarian.
The right to die is a concept based on the opinion that human beings are entitled to end their life or undergo voluntary euthanasia. Possession of this right is often understood that a person with a terminal illness, incurable pain, or without the will to continue living, should be allowed to end their own life, use assisted suicide, or to decline life-prolonging treatment. The question of who, if anyone, may be empowered to make this decision is often the subject of debate.
The Terri Schiavo case was a series of court and legislative actions in the United States from 1998 to 2005, regarding the care of Theresa Marie Schiavo, a woman in an irreversible persistent vegetative state. Schiavo's husband and legal guardian argued that Schiavo would not have wanted prolonged artificial life support without the prospect of recovery, and in 1998, he elected to remove her feeding tube. Schiavo's parents disputed her husband's assertions and challenged Schiavo's medical diagnosis, arguing in favor of continuing artificial nutrition and hydration. The highly publicized and prolonged series of legal challenges presented by her parents, which ultimately involved state and federal politicians up to the level of President George W. Bush, caused a seven-year delay before Schiavo's feeding tube was ultimately removed.
The case of Terri Schiavo became the subject of intense public debate and activism.
Voluntary euthanasia is the ending of a person's life at their request in order to relieve them of suffering. Voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) have been the focus of intense debate in recent years.
Suicide is a crime in some parts of the world. However, while suicide has been decriminalized in many countries, the act is almost universally stigmatized and discouraged. In some contexts, suicide could be utilized as an extreme expression of liberty, as is exemplified by its usage as an expression of devout dissent towards perceived tyranny or injustice which occurred occasionally in cultures such as ancient Rome, medieval Japan, or today's Tibet Autonomous Region.
Joni Eareckson Tada is an American evangelical Christian author, radio host, artist, and founder of Joni and Friends, an organization "accelerating Christian ministry in the disability community".
Care Not Killing is an organisation opposed to the legalisation of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide in the United Kingdom. Their goals include promoting more and better palliative care, ensuring that existing laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide are not weakened or repealed during the lifetime of the current Parliament, influencing the balance of public opinion against any weakening of the law. They are opposed in their efforts by pro-assisted dying groups such as Dignity in Dying and Humanists UK. Its website describes itself as an "alliance of over 40 organisations and thousands of individuals", but does not list its members.
The World Federation of Right to Die Societies is an international federation of associations that promote access to voluntary euthanasia. It holds regular international meetings on dying and death.
Wesley J. Smith is an American lawyer and author, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism, a politically conservative, pseudoscientific, non-profit think tank. He is also a consultant for the Patients Rights Council. Smith is known for his criticism of animal rights, environmentalism, assisted suicide and utilitarian bioethics. He is also the host of the Humanize podcast.
Involuntary Euthanasia is currently illegal in all 50 states of the United States. Assisted suicide is legal in 10 jurisdictions in the US: Washington, D.C. and the states of California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico, Maine, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Washington. The status of assisted suicide is disputed in Montana, though currently authorized per the Montana Supreme Court's ruling in Baxter v. Montana that "nothing in Montana Supreme Court precedent or Montana statutes [indicates] that physician aid in dying is against public policy."
Harriet McBryde Johnson was an American author, attorney, and disability rights activist. She was disabled due to a neuromuscular disease and used a motorized wheelchair.
Euthanasia became legal in New Zealand when the End of Life Choice Act 2019 took full effect on 7 November 2021. It is illegal to "aid and abet suicide" under Section 179 of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961. The clauses of this act make it an offence to "incite, procure or counsel" and "aid and abet" someone else to commit suicide, regardless of whether a suicide attempt is made or not. Section 179 covers both coercion to undertake assisted suicide and true suicide, such as that caused by bullying. This will not change under the End of Life Choices Act 2019, which has provisions on coercion of terminally ill people.
Assisted suicide is suicide with the aid of another person. In the United States, the term "assisted suicide" is typically used to describe what proponents refer to as medical aid in dying, in which terminally ill adults are prescribed and self-administer barbiturates if they feel that they are suffering significantly. The term is often used interchangeably with physician-assisted suicide (PAS), "physician-assisted dying", "physician-assisted death", "assisted death" and "medical aid in dying" (MAiD).
"Peter-assment" is the 14th episode of the eighth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on March 21, 2010. The title of the episode, like the fourth season's episodes "Petarded", "Peterotica" and "Petergeist", is a portmanteau between "Peter" and "Harassment". The episode follows Peter after he becomes a paparazzo, and begins to annoy the citizens and local celebrities in Quahog, and eventually breaks his glasses. Peter then becomes the target of sexual lust by his boss at the Pawtucket Brewery, Angela, who finds him attractive without his occasional eyewear. Continually refusing to have relations with her, Peter tries to avoid Angela, but she fires him and attempts suicide, leaving him with no choice but to acknowledge her deep-rooted sexual desires.
Involuntary euthanasia, typically regarded as a type of murder, occurs when euthanasia is performed on a person who would be able to provide informed consent, but does not, either because they do not want to die, or because they were not asked.
Me Before You is a 2016 romance drama film directed by Thea Sharrock in her directorial debut and adapted by author Jojo Moyes from her 2012 novel of the same name. The film stars Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin, Janet McTeer, Charles Dance and Brendan Coyle.
The Disability Day of Mourning is observed annually on 1 March to commemorate disabled people murdered by their caregivers, especially their parents. First observed in 2012 and propagated by disability rights organizations such as Not Dead Yet and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the day aims to bring attention to the issue of filicide of disabled children and adults, and the degree to which such murders are treated as different from or more socially acceptable than similar murders of abled people.
