Dax Cowart was hospitalized after a gas explosion engulfed his car because he suffered severe burns. He was "so badly burned and in so much pain that he didn't even want to live through the first moments after the explosion." He repeatedly asked his doctors and family to end his agony. Dianne Pretty suffered from motor neurone disease which causes a painful death. She wanted to experience “a quick and painless death, at home, surrounded by [her] family”. Mary Ormerod, 85, was deprived of nutrients after falling into a coma. His doctor and daughter made the decision to end his torment, but the doctor was suspended for doing so (BBC). These cases and many others have occurred in medical history, and many more are sure to occur. This end of anguish is called euthanasia. For the ethical concerns of the issue to be discussed, euthanasia must be defined and its various categories understood. The discussion itself should be based on a method of reasoning and logic. One of the sources of ethical logic, and probably the primary method of reasoning in some parts of the world, is religion. Different religions differ in their view of euthanasia, some share similarities while others differ completely. According to the book "Euthanasia: a Reference Handbook" by McDougall and Gorman, the Merriam Webster dictionary defines euthanasia as "an easy death or mercy killing." Suicide is also defined as “the act of voluntarily committing suicide” (McDougall, Gorman, and Roberts). Thus, physician-assisted suicide is the act of committing suicide with the assistance of a physician (McDougall, Gorman, and Roberts). Euthanasia is a very controversial issue, some consider it a human right while others consider it unethical. One of the...... middle of paper ......euthanasia news. Following this similarity of points of view, can a global ethical law be formed? To answer this question, further investigation into the views of these three religions on other ethical issues is necessary. Works Cited Alters, Sandra. Death and dying: controversies over the end of life. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2009. Athar, Shahid, and Hossam E. Fadel. ISLAMIC MEDICAL ETHICS: the IMANA perspective. sdBBC. BBC. April 4, 2011. Betzold, Michel (1993). Meet Doctor Death. Troy, MI: Momentum Books. McDougall, Jennifer Fecio, Martha Gorman and Carolyn S. Roberts. Euthanasia: a reference manual. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2008. Novak, David. The sanctity of human life. Washington DC: Georgetown UP, 2007. Sachdina, Abdulaziz Abdulhussein. Islamic biomedical ethics: principles and application. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009.