Debate about the legality and morality of Euthanasia has been a phenomenon since time immemorial. How can it be lawful to let a patient die slowly and painless through a lethal injection thus saving his/her family from yet another ordeal to add to what has already befallen them? It is very difficult to find a moral answer to this question. Euthanasia is a process of ending a person’s life in order to relieve them from an unbearable pain, irreversible comma or an incurable disease. Is it really right to help a patient end their suffering by helping them to die? In addition, does it morally wrong to keep a patient alive know that they will never get better and are in awful pain? It is the patients right to undergo or refuse any treatment and it is also their right to ask for Euthanasia or not to ask for, however, it should be determined that life is sacred and should be respected. The subject of ending a patient’s life with the reason that they are being relieved from their pain or there is no hope for their recovery should be out of question. Therefore Euthanasia does not have a place in the human society and should not be legalized.
In any circumstance that entails ending a person’s life, there will always be a contending dilemma about what should and should not be done. Everyone has a right to live regardless of their situation and therefore, Euthanasia should not be legalized in order for all people to enjoy this right. According to Byock an American practicing Physician, Euthanasia is ending a patient’s life intentionally in order to relieve their pain from terminal illnesses or life injuries through lethal injection or suspension of treatment (Byock 34). Euthanasia should not be legalized because first, every human being has the right to live despite any form of illness and suffering and therefore deserve a natural death. Toombs Kay an associate Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Baylor University in Texas asserts that, human beings should be allowed to die naturally and not put in situations whereby they have to choose whether to live or die or let someone choose if they are to survive or die (Toombs 195). No one can decide the worth of any human being’s life and no one will. There are many avenues which are available in the medical world for pain relief and many procedures to ease pain therefore, Euthanasia is not an answer to pain and people have a right to these procedures and to die naturally other than through Euthanasia.
Opponents of Euthanasia argue that a patient should have a right to make a decision and certain restrictions in the best way possible to stop suffering from endless pain through Euthanasia. What about the deaths being caused through Euthanasia without the patients consent? Some family members will end their patient’s life because they are unable to pay the medical bills or they are just tired of taking care of them. According to Pollard a retired Palliative Care Physician, many people will allow the death of people in order to cut medical costs and because they want them out of the picture (Pollard 64). The legalization of Euthanasia will target the disabled, weak and the poor as insurance companies will terminate lives in order to save money. According to Schadenberg, an insurance company named Menzies Health Insurance Group was forced to pay for Euthanasia deaths in a Dutch Clinic after they offered to pay for the cost of people who as for help in order to undergo voluntary Euthanasia (Schadenberg 67). This clinic had recorded 51 deaths out of 456 people who had asked to be helped to die through Euthanasia deaths in Netherlands. There will be a slippery slope from Euthanasia to murder since it will work to an advantage to other people. People’s lives should not be left in the hands of doctors and family members.
In addition, Euthanasia is against the Hippocratic Oath. According to Pozgar and Santucci, many doctors will make patients to have Euthanasia just to get rid of them since they are tired of treating them (Pozgar and Santucci 98). There will be no way to differentiate a legitimate appeal to an appeal of financial underlining and doctors getting tired of patients and this means, many patients will be killed illegitimately since it will be difficult to prevent people from committing pre-planned murders under Euthanasia. Doctors are there to take care of patients until they get well or help them, manage and learn to stay with terminal illnesses and not to kill (Stefoff 92). Doctors are obligated by the Hippocratic Oath to keep their patients alive and that is what they should do instead of Euthanasia. In addition, physicians should be preventing deaths. Therefore, if Euthanasia is legalized, many doctors will get rid of patients with incurable diseases. Moreover, many patients will give up fighting against difficult diseases because there is an option of not going though the pain. The argument that death is inevitable and if doctors have done their best and it is not possible, they should have mercy on the patients by killing them is unethical and inhuman. Doctors should for no reason give up on their patients regardless of how impossible their situation may be (Sullivan 117). They must exhaust all alternatives to give their patients a fighting chance to survive and recover.
In conclusion, even though death is inevitable, legalization of Euthanasia would bring a wide range of profound detrimental effects. First, it would diminish the protection of the right to live and it would allow the killing of people who do not genuinely give accent to Euthanasia. Moreover, people will end up seeking the death of others through Euthanasia yet there are options other than Euthanasia. Also, doctors will not do their best to save their patients. Therefore, Euthanasia should not be legalized at all since everyone had the right to live and die naturally and in addition to that, there are options to patients’ pain other than killing them through this procedure. If legalized, there will be long term consequences that people are yet to envisage. These consequences could be pernicious to the lives of patients. Therefore it is morally wrong to deal with patients’ suffering by killing them. In essence, nothing can be worse like our right to life being diminished in value. The debate of Euthanasia is placing the lives of the weak in the hands of other people. Once the society has given a group of people the right to end life, our right to life has disappeared behind a red tape, therefore a prudent person should not accept the Euthanasia practice by allowing their lives to be taken a way by others. Euthanasia should not be legalized.
Works Cited
Schadenberg, Alex. Exposing Vulnerable People to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. Australia: Connor Court Publishing, 2013. Print.
Stefoff, Rebecca. Open For Debate: The Right to Die. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2009. Print.
Sullivan, Dennis. Euthanasia versus letting die: Christian decision-making in terminal
Patients. Ethics & Medicine 21.2 (2005): 109-18. Print.
Toombs, S. Kay. Living and Dying with Dignity. Elm Mott, Texas: Colloquium Press, 2010. Print.
Byock, Ira. The Best Care Possible: A Physician's Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life. New York: Avery Publishers, 2012. Print.
Pozgar, George. D. and Santucci, Nina. Legal and Ethical Issues for Health Professionals (2nd Edition). Sudbury, Maine: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2010. Print.
