Today there are five to ten thousand comatose patients in long term care facilities (Wheeler A1). There are countless elderly people in care facilities that have repeatedly expressed a desire to die. There are countless terminally ill patients that have also begged for death. Should these people be allowed to die, or should they be forced to keep on living? This question has plagued ethicists and physicians throughout the years.
In the Netherlands, courts have begun to permit the administration of lethal injections to terminally ill patients (Jacoby 101). To many people, this is a barb…