Many people believe that we now live in a world where we can make decisions – women are allowed to choose if and when they want to get pregnant so they take pills to ensure they have their choice. However just like with birth control, there is a lot of debate on euthanasia. Many people are of the opinion that euthanasia should not be allowed. Euthanasia is the process of allowing someone dies willingly and has being mercy killing by many. Unfortunately it is the killing that gets many people riled up as they are of the opinion that lives should not under any circumstances be taken. I am one of those people who agree with those who claim that there is nothing merciful about the taking of people’s lives and I will show in the pages below the problems with euthanasia.
Many people have wondered if people on the brink of death can still make a choice and choose death and watch such a choice be acted upon. People have argued that they should be allowed to die in dignity as many of the people who go through with euthanasia usually have some debilitating and life threatening illness that they may think they have no cure over. They feel that allowing them to live in pain and agony for maybe six more months before they die is not life at all but greed by the ones they may be leaving behind who do not want to say goodbye. Proponents of euthanasia believe that it is immoral to force people to keep on living in suffering and pain when they would rather die with dignity. These proponents claim that since suicide is not yet considered a crime that euthanasia should not be as well.
But there are many other proponents who are against the idea of euthanasia as they see it as murder. The religious groups believe that life in itself was given by God and only God can take it. There are also legal proponents who believe that euthanasia should not be allowed as they believe this leads people to take the lives of those who would otherwise have wanted to live.
The Legal Position
In most countries euthanasia is considered illegal although that has not stopped some doctors from practicing it still. In a country like the United Kingdom it is considered murder to practice euthanasia and as such it is illegal and culprits are liable to spend up to fourteen years behind bars. This does not change even if the doctor or medical practitioner was acting on the orders of the patient. The 1961 Suicide Act takes it a step further in the UK and stipulates that people who assist, counsel or aid someone in the taking of their lives is also liable to fourteen years imprisonment. The authorities however also decide the circumstances regarding to the person’s death when they are prosecuting cases on euthanasia. Many other countries have similar laws with regards euthanasia even though it may seem like the tide is turning as recent surveys have shown that up to 80% of the public believe that a terminally ill person should be allowed the decency to die with the doctor’s help.
While euthanasia has picked up many titles along the way the end result is always death - whether it is active or passive euthanasia. As I have demonstrated above, different countries have different laws regarding euthanasia. The law sees doctors that practice passive euthanasia as different from those doctors who will abandon a patient to die. Although the law states that any euthanasia that occurs without the consent of the patient should be treated as a criminal offense, which is to say that the patient was not pressured into arriving at that decision. This is one of the biggest issues I have with euthanasia. If it were to be made legal, it will not be administered for the healthy but rather the weak and terminally ill. How easy will it be to convince people in this state that they are better off dying so that their loved ones may have closure? There are many people that have been given a very grim medical report who have gone on to achieve great things because they did not give up. The people who make it out alive from these kind of illnesses may be few and far between but if euthanasia kills a person that would otherwise have wanted to live out their lives, no matter how short that period of time is.
Ethical Issues
Euthanasia will always be compared against the religious, moral and ethical backdrop of the society. Most democratic countries accept the right to choose as a civil right. If this is the case, an issue like euthanasia has to be made by the individual itself and many of these people that have chosen euthanasia will not have made this choice if they were to make it by themselves. They would have preferred to go on living – no matter how short that life may be. Most religions are also against the taking of one’s life and euthanasia will always be seen as just that. Many religions that worship a supreme God believe that life was given to us by him and he alone can take that life. they claim that if you had no input in how or when your birth would be then you should not determine when your death would be. In taking your life or giving consent for one’s life to be taken from them is equal to that person in question taking the role of God upon themselves? It is clear that not everybody will believe in a God who gives life and watches over the life, people cannot deny the fact that everybody is unique with unique DNA and a life that cannot be copied. If indeed our lives are as precious as have been mentioned above, then why do we take these same lives. It therefore becomes the job of the society to stop people from short changing themselves through the taking of their lives.
Religion and Death
Death plays a very important role in the many different religions in the world and while these different religions treat death differently, most of them are adverse to the idea of euthanasia. The Christian religion believe that it is God who gives life and He too should be the one who takes life and that the so called mercy killing is actually murder and should be stopped. One of the most active advocates against euthanasia is the Roman Catholic Church who actually forbids it. They teach that people attached to the ailing should instead take care of them and nurture them in their dying days as opposed to finding a quick fix solution to their problem.
Most religions that have a supreme God stick to His command when He says that we must not kill. In as much as people may look at euthanasia as ‘letting the patient die with dignity’ the bible has called this process death and frowns at it. Religion also sees humans as being special because they were created by God. If mankind is indeed special then they must be preserved by all means and not trivialized through the practice of euthanasia. While Christianity is adamant in its opinion that euthanasia should not be allowed, the eastern religions take on a different approach. These religions see death as being set free from mortal life. However they too are against harming other people and euthanasia falls into the second category.
While religions like Hinduism and Buddhism see death as a process of the life cycle, shortening that life does interfere with this divine cycle and is therefore frowned upon. Ending one’s life before it naturally ends also interferes with ultimate liberation and what the said person will become in the afterlife. Many other religions have different reasons as to why they are against this sort of life ending procedure and as a result euthanasia has been a heavily debated topic. This doesn’t look like it will end any time soon.
The Hospice as an Alternative
Living with the terminally or seriously ill is a huge burden on the sick person and the caregiver. This pressure has seen to the rise of hospices being prepared for people who have a very short time to live where they are cared for and given palliative care. These centres do not try to prolong the life or even shorten it but instead they try to make it as stress free as possible for all the parties involved. The staffs at these centres help to enhance the quality of life of these people who can see and tell that they are not alone in their suffering but that there are many other people with similar or worse cases than theirs. These hospices help to ease the burden on the loved ones who had taken up the role of caretakers. It also reduces the resentment felt by the terminally ill patient towards their loved ones.
Personal Experience
For many years my grandmother has been suffering from depression and this depression began to make her physically ill. It got to a point where she had to survive on anti-depressants and because she hated how they made her feel she would deliberately not take them at times. Unfortunately for her situation when she was not taking her medications, she acted violent. During her last days she became increasingly ill and emancipated and this also became a burden on her children as well. Many times she had family watch her as the depression and many other illnesses that came about as a result. Staying at home and being looked after became hard on my mother because she was always a very energetic and busy woman and many of times she wished she was dead.
As hard as it was to take care of her we did still do everything in our power till the day she just died normally. We knew that it was eventually going to be a losing battle but we were willing to keep her alive instead of the alternative choice of euthanasia. Whenever people wondered why we were punishing her by keeping her alive, we always said that the last four months of her life may have seen her have 110 bad days but the 10 good days was worth her being alive.
Euthanasia – A Global Issue
The world has become a global village with longevity of life seen as a global reality. This is due to the new and improved research, better medical facilities and healthier alternatives to life. in all this however, globalisation has not been able to stop death from happening and why some people face death and come out victorious, others suffer a long and difficult journey before they eventually die. People are said to be living not just because they are breathing but because of the quality of life they live. There are some illnesses that deprive people of that quality of life that was at one time or the other available to them. The people who say euthanasia should be allowed see euthanasia as a humane thing to do and not as murder (Gerald).
Although I do not have data or a survey to back this statement, I do believe that most people would want a pain free death although not everyone will enjoy that benefit. Looking at the above one could almost believe that euthanasia is the right thing to do. In my life I have seen many things that may seem right at the start but halfway through I realise that I have made a grave mistake and then it would be too difficult to retrace my steps. Euthanasia is a touching subject because it has to do with life, it is not like a dress that you buy from the shops and on getting home realise that you don’t like it and you return it for a refund. Life especially that of a loved one should not be treated as a discarded or unwanted cloth. Is there anything like death with dignity or is death just death – a finality of life.
Proponents for Euthanasia
While there are people and organisations and even legislations that have been put up to stop euthanasia, there are those who believe that euthanasia should be allowed to thrive. The proponents of euthanasia believe that it is possible for euthanasia to be controlled and not abused even though it will be hard to have regulations in place that will prevent people from abusing euthanasia. They say it is just like the law and how it affects any crime (Neil 243). There may be laws in place to prevent crimes like fraud or theft or any other crime but still there will also be people that will go ahead and commit those crimes.
The problem and the catch though is that no laws and regulations put in place will dissuade wicked people from pressuring vulnerable people to make the choice of death even though they may have wanted to live for a few days more. They however admit that it would be a better situation to create a structure for euthanasia as opposed to making no structure available. People being who they are will practise euthanasia whether it be made legal or not and the best way to minimize abuse would be to put structures in place. They have argued that this is a similar thing to the struggle for abortion. With structures put in place, vulnerable people will be able to be protected through these structures instead of just being unnecessarily pressured to choose euthanasia.
How then would a good regulation look like? An effective regulation should take everything into consideration before deciding that euthanasia is the best option. In other words it should not be the first option but rather the last one. There are some parts of the world that have started practising such things on a reasonable scale.
- Physician-assisted suicide was legalised in Oregon in 1998 under very severe conditions. For the first three years of its presences only about 2 people a month used euthanasia to end their lives. The process involved things like getting checked by a second physician who must also claim that the patient had less than six months to live and many requests for euthanasia must have been given.
- While the Netherlands still considers euthanasia and assisted suicide as crimes, there are times doctors can be exempt from liability of crime. The Criminal Code Article of Netherlands has stipulated that if the patient that has made a voluntary request to die was suffering unendurable pain and is convinced that there is no other viable solution, then the doctor that assists that patient to die will not be liable of crime.
Problems with Euthanasia
There is the fear that euthanasia will be abused if it is allowed. Vulnerable and at risk patients will be pressured by people to end their lives. While I have shown that it is difficult to take care of any ailing person, forcing them to choose death instead of fight for their lives is wickedness. And many of them will be coerced into choosing death. I could give an example of two AIDS sufferers. The first one may have been abandoned as a result of their illness by all they love and hold dear and in a state of isolation choose death to end it all. However there is the other sufferer who is being pressured by present loved ones to end their life while all they may have wanted might have been the chance to spend every waking minute with these same loved ones. Allowing euthanasia will be a chance for it to be abused.
People are created free and they enjoy the opportunity to live life free. Illness not only saps one of this freedom of life but it also saps the chance to live free of the loved ones who now have to care for an ill relative and especially when that ailment does not seem to have a silver lining. This total dependence on others leads to feelings of worthlessness as they see their situation depriving the ones they love of the chance to live life free. Some people that find themselves in that position may decide rather to end it all than to have their loved ones hate on them later from depriving them from living their own lives.
On-going medical treatment is a very expensive venture and more often than not it affects the financial lives of the loved one who may also be left to pay the bills when the sufferer dies eventually. Many people may stipulate that since the person is going to die anyway that it might be better if the life is shortened instead of prolonging it and in so doing increasing their hospital debt. The lethal medication that is usually administered for euthanasia costs less than $100 and this is much cheaper than the continuing medical treatment of the patient. I believe that many people who choose or persuade others to have euthanasia have never stopped to consider what they would want to happen to them if they were the ones lying by a thread in that hospital bed.
Conclusion
I have heard many stories of people who have been affected in one way or the other by sicknesses that look incurable and how they have at one time or the other considered how much easier it would be for them to end it all. I remember the story of a friend whose mother was dying of cancer and how she one day joked that her son should use an axe and chop her head off. While she said it in jest on one of her better days, that friend did sit to think for a minute how much easier his life would be when his mother would die. While he was never going to get an ax to chop off his mother’s head or even allow her take the euthanasia route, he did admit that her illness was not just hard on her but it was hard on him as well. Dying is so different from child bearing and it does take time and unlike child bearing where there are people on hand to assist you bring in that new life, death happens when you are alone.
In that instance he realised that euthanasia went far beyond the issue of morality or legality and was really all about how selfish one was. The issue I have with euthanasia is that it deprives the carers the time they needed to process how they would feel when that person was no longer in their lives. Just like my friend, many people are not ready to die and even though they may moan and groan and even wish death on the sufferer in their care when things get too hard for them, at the end of it all, they want these people to go only when they have fully prepared themselves for that loss.
Those who agree with euthanasia will call my friend selfish and maybe he was, but isn’t that what love is about. They will claim that he deprived her going in a dignified manner and instead watch as she lost herself and her will to eat or live or endure insurmountable pain because he wanted to be with his loved one for one more day. They may argue that that person on that bed is no longer the loved one they knew but a caricature of their former selves and they may be right. But in all this I say that there is no telling the amount of pain that a human can bare if that human believes that there are loved ones cheering them on. Only a fool will believe that he will never die but then, everybody that is alive should be allowed to die and not pressured to give up their right to live so that their carers can go on with their lives – that is very selfish.
What protects the terminally ill person from the clutches of their wicked family who would rather they die sooner rather than later. Does that man or woman who is been rattled by alheizmers have enough thinking faculty to realise that no one has the power to determine when he should die. There was a time that people saw abortion as a taboo but today the story is different. If the world continues to grow at the rate it is at the moment, I believe that there will come a time when euthanasia just might become law. I hope that if that day ever comes by that the people who wield the power to determine if grandma should die tomorrow should look back and think of all they have gone through and how one day it may be them lying on that bed and waiting for your grandson to give a verdict on your life. I hope that if that day does roll around that you and your grandson will choose life no matter how short it may be.
References
BBC. “Ethical Problems of Euthanasia.” n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/overview/problems.shtml
Campbell, Neil. “A Problem for the Idea of Voluntary Euthanasia.” Journal of Medical Ethics. 25 (1999) : pp 242-244. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. http://jme.bmj.com/content/25/3/242.full.pdf
Berger, John. “Hiroshima: Paired Readings of the Reality of War.” n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. http://www.mccc.edu/pdf/esl135/hiroshima.pdf
Larue, Gerald. “Euthanasia: A Global Issue.” North American Committee of Humanism. (1999) Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
http://www.humanismtoday.org/vol13/larue.html
Nickel & Dimed. “On Not Getting by in America.” New York: Metropolitan/ Owl Book, PDF. http://swcta.net/moore/files/2013/03/Nickel-and-Dimed-Barbara-Ehrenreich.pdf
