The Value Of Human Life

Euthanasia-A Critique was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on June 20, 1990. Peter A. Singer and Mark Siegler are the two authors of this article. Singer is a graduate of the University of Toronto Medical School and holds a master's in public health from Yale University. He is assistant professor of medicine and associate director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Toronto. Siegler got hi medical degree from the University of Chicago. He is the director of the Center of Clinical Medical Ethics at the university. He has written more then 100 articles and six books. The two authors believe that the medical community should rethink the move towards the use of euthanasia. Singer and Siegler discuss cost containment and what it entails, such as insurance. The expense of hospital stays and the cutting down on nursing staff at hospitals affects it. Many trauma centers are also closing down. They bring up the social injustice of euthanasia and how the poor and elderly will be affected. The minorities, uninsured and others could be taken advantage of by health care providers. Other problems are aroused when ethics come into the picture. The authors talk about the Hippocratic oath, religion, and people's ethical traditions.

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When dealing with euthanasia issues arise, one of them is cost containment. When hospitals and doctors run tests it cost money, many tests are expensive and have to be repeated often. Health insurance can be expensive and many people choose either not to get insurance or can't afford it. When people don't have insurance it costs all of the taxpayers and hospital to cover the expense. This would encourage doctors to perform euthanasia on patients that are not paying for themselves just to get rid of them. Not having to spend money on patient's medicine will keep cost at minimum along with long hospital stays with patients being kept alive with machines costing a lot of money everyday. There are many trauma centers closing throughout the country making health care shortages. This leads to over crowding and the possibility of doctors involuntarily killing patients to make room is the hospital.

Many groups of society will be targeted for euthanasia. Some of the groups are the uninsured, poor, elderly, minorities, and mentally disabled. Doctors would target these individuals because there less desirable role on society. Most doctors would not think is this way but they are out there. The uninsured using taxpayer's money to get treatment, doctor performs euthanasia to get rid of a problem. Elderly fall subject to this because they don't have as long to live so the