Designing, Evaluating and Appraising a Persuasive Communication

Analysis of the focus group

The focus group of this persuasive communication will be patients who want to have euthanasia to end their lives. This persuasive communication will be for legalising euthanasia in Britain. Euthanasia is the process by painlessly helping a terminally patient to die, usually euthanasia is carried out because the person who dies asks for it but there are some cases where the person who dies can’t make such a request and a close friend or relative has to make the decision. It is sometimes called assisted suicide or mercy killing and it usually performed by lethal injections. Euthanasia is a very debatable topic therefore there is varying attitudes and beliefs about it in our society.

Currently euthanasia is illegal in Britain and even if the other person asks you to kill them it would be classed as murder. There is a punishment of up to 14 years of imprisonment if you are found to assist, aid or counsel someone in their decision to end their lives. In 2000 the BMA opposed to legalise euthanasia or physician assisted suicide, and in 2005 doctors voted to support a change in the law to legalise terminally ill patients to be helped by assisted suicide however in the 2006 BMA conference it was ruled out as 65% of the doctors voted against physician assisted dying. However aid in dying is legal in many countries including Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and three American states.

Leaving aside the laws on euthanasia, people in the society have their reasons for and against euthanasia. The religious arguments against euthanasia state that it is against the will of god and that no human has the right to take away a life. The ethical arguments against euthanasia state that accepting euthanasia means that we are accepting that some lives are worth less than others’. It could also start a slippery slope which leads to killing of people who are thought to be undesirable and the process can be abused. People in our society who...