Do you know anything on the history of euthanasia and what do you think about it? i'm doing an essay on euthanasia and it needs to be in for...

Euthanasia is the ending of life to prevent further suffering.

"I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel" Hippocrates 400 B.C. The Hippocratic Oath taken by many physicians firmly declares that assisted suicide or euthanasia is not allowed.

1939 Aktion T 4: the Nazi Euthanasia program intended to eliminate life not worthy of life. This program killed untold thousands of mentally ill, mentally retarded and otherwise physically handicapped children.

Nurses were active participants and killed over 10,000 people in these involuntary "euthanasia programs". After the war was over, most of the nurses were never punished for these crimes against humanity although some nurses were tried along with the physicians they assisted. One such trial was of 14 nurses and was held in Munich in 1965. Although some of these nurses reported that they struggled with a guilty conscience, others did not see anything wrong with their actions and believed that they were releasing these patients from their suffering.(http://www.baycrest.org/Winter%202002/article4.htm)

My personal thoughts are mixed. I do  not believe that it is ever alright to kill another human being for any reason. However, if my animals (horses, dogs, or cats) are suffering, and there is nothing I can do for them, then I will take them to the vet for the "big sleep".

I saw my father suffer horribly through bone cancer, and I would not for one minute wish him to live another day in that kind of pain, so I could justify giving him something to end his suffering.

I think that if you begin a euthanasia program, you run the risk of doing what the Nazis did and deciding for others whether or not their lives are worth living.