Voluntary Euthanasia:
             The Right to Choose
             "The word 'euthanasia' comes from the Greek-eu good and thanatos death. But there has been a more complex meaning developed in recent times. The word euthanasia has now come to mean doing something to achieve a good death. Doing something, either positive or negative, about getting that good death" (Humphry 80).
             The world is concerned about the denial of human rights. Human rights' violations include imprisonment without trial, torture, killing, and discrimination. A less recognized but also important violation is increasingly occurring in our freedom-loving country. We deny incurable patients the right to die with dignity. Individuals, who have
            
             lived free lives and made their own personal choices, are being denied this last choice. The dying must have the right to choose the manner and time of that final exit: death.
             Distaste for such openness about voluntary euthanasia undoubtedly lies within the realm of modern man's horror of irrational suicide. Suicide for an emotional reason is always tragic and almost always unnecessary. Nevertheless, suicide is endemic in humankind. However much we regret it, suicide will not go away. Moreover, if we care so much, why do we not do more about prevention, such as teaching parents to recognize the signs of potential suicide in their children? According to statistics, the suicide rate in the Western world appears to be rising steadily, particularly among the youth (Nuland 144-145). The other side of the argument, however, will not disappear or retreat just because of our distaste for emotional suicide.
             The course of nature once seemed unalterable. Now, advances in medical technology have allowed terminally ill and permanently unconscious patients, who once died quickly from complications or from an inability to eat and drink, to be kept alive dramatically longer than ever before. The newfound capabilities o...