Euthanasia Key Words

Question 1

Persistent Vegetative State (PVS)

Answer 1

A condition where a patient with severe brain damage is in a state of very limited arousal rather than true awareness or consciousness, usually an irreversible condition

Question 2

Palliative Care?

Answer 2

The use of drugs and medicine to relieve pain but without directly causing the death of the patient

Question 3

Vitalism?

Answer 3

The view that human life is always sacred because it possesses a god given soul

Question 4

What is a slippery slope argument?

Answer 4

An argument that claims if a rule is weakened, even for good reasons, then what eventually follows if the rule is again weakened for good reasons will be highly undesirable

Question 5

Eugenics

Answer 5

• ‘The production of good off-spring’
• Used to justify producing racially and intellectually ‘superior’ humans through selective breeding and termination of ‘inferior’ humans