Euthanasia vs. Suicide
Difference between Euthanasia and Suicide:- There are some similarities between suicide and euthanasia, which is why some confuse these two terms and believe they describe the same; nevertheless, in spite of any similarity that may exist between these concepts, the fact is that they describe different acts.
If you also have doubts or want to know a little more about the difference between euthanasia and suicide, continue reading, because then we explain it to you.
Difference between Euthanasia and Suicide
Suicide
Suicide can be defined as the act of taking one’s life voluntarily and intentionally. There are a number of factors that can lead to suicide, but usually those who commit suicide do so by some of the following: very high levels of stress, economic problems, love or partner problems, unhappiness, death of a loved one, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and alcohol or drug abuse, among others.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that suicide ranks 13th as the cause of death worldwide. More than a million people commit suicide each year and about 10 and 20 million try unsuccessfully. Among adolescents and adults fewer than 35 is one of the leading causes of death and, in the case of men, the likelihood of committing suicide is 4 or 5 times higher than in the case of women.
Euthanasia
On the other hand, euthanasia is the act of taking the life or allowing another to remove it with the aim of ending a suffering or pain that is usually caused by illness.
Euthanasia can be categorized in different ways: voluntary, non-voluntary and involuntary; but all these categories can be summarized into two groups: active euthanasia and passive euthanasia. The first refers to “assisted suicide” and occurs when someone helps a patient who is suffering too much to end their life. In another order, passive voluntary euthanasia occurs when someone who depends on medical devices to live requires that they be removed; even knowing that in those cases death is almost 100% safe. In the case of passive euthanasia, this is the one that occurs when the sick person refuses to carry a treatment that represents the only way to extend his life a little more and,
Non-voluntary euthanasia (sometimes called “pious death”) occurs when the person’s explicit consent is not available, either because the person is in a vegetative state or in any other cause. In these cases it is the family, legal representative or the couple who makes the decision to stop giving all kinds of support so that the person is kept alive (passive euthanasia) or use a lethal injection to end the life in question definitively ( active euthanasia).
Finally, involuntary euthanasia occurs when it occurs in a person who is able to consent to it but does not. In this case, such person does not choose to die because usually at no time is asked about it to give consent, so it is common that cases of involuntary euthanasia are considered as homicides.
