In our presentation we chose to look into euthanasia (assisted suicide) and the case of Tony Nicklinson. Euthanasia can either be Active (when someone ends another person's life), Passive (where someone ends a person's life by withholding information), Voluntary (where someone asks for help to die), Non-Voluntary (where someone makes the decision for another person to die) or Involuntary (where someone is killed against their wishes).
Tony Nicklinson had locked-in syndrome for seven years due to the result of a stroke. Locked-in syndrome is a neuropsychological disorder. It affects a person's nervous system as well as their brain and can cause paralysis from the neck down as well as paralysis of nerves in the brain except for the nerves…show more content… The two relevant rules to Tony Nicklinson are that doctors swear to not harm patients and to not partake in assisting a suicide. If the courts had ruled in Tony's case a doctor (or multiple doctors) would have to break these rules to do so. However they would be carrying out another rule at the same time which would be to do good, as killing Tony and following his wishes would end his suffering and be an act of kindness.
Also nurses and midwives follow a code of conduct, performance and ethics which states that nurses and midwives should make treating a patient their key focus (as well as other things). However in Tony's case the only treatments available for his condition are a miracle or death.
With regards to morals euthanasia is a fifty fifty split, some see it as wrong and others see it as right and it all depends on each person's belief and these beliefs can be influenced by different factors. These factors include culture, faith, education, experience and mentors. A person's beliefs can over time influence a person's behaviour and in the case of Tony Nicklinson these beliefs could have possibly caused protests either for or against his case depending on how deeply the situation would have affected…show more content… Tony himself seemed to rally people round to his way of thinking (i.e. for his plea to legalise assisted suicide in his case) by taking interviews with the media and having his own twitter account. It took him hours to convey his message as he had to communicate with an alphabet board and his eyes as he couldn't speak. This way people could see and hear from him that it was what he truly wanted and he could argue his case and express what it is like to live as he does. In doing so he may have proved to people that helping him die was the morally right thing to do and that his death would have been a mercy killing.
Furthermore in the end how Tony ended up dying was completely unethical. He would have died suffering, suffocating and in pain. If the courts ruled for his case he would have died a lot quicker and painlessly especially if he was euthanized by sedation. In fact his death would have been peaceful and a lot less taxing on his family who had to watch as he wasted away and as a disease ravaged his