Euthanasia Essay
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Euthanasia-the era's most wretched dilemma.The term euthanasia is not new to the twentieth century. Even in ancient societies, terminally ill people requested to have their lives ended; though the meaning of euthanasia for them differed from its meaning today. The English word euthanasia is taken from the Greek eu thanatos "good or easy death". However today it is given a different meaning, because of the social and moral issues it touches. In the present day the term euthanasia is associated with the act of mercifully (although some might argue this point) ending the life of a hopelessly suffering patient with his or her consent. If the patient's condition makes it impossible to get their consent, then the closest living relatives have the power to allow euthanasia. The movement to legalize euthanasia began in 1906 when the Ohio legislature referred a bill to its Committee on Medical Jurisprudence, which proposed the legislation of active voluntary euthanasia. The bill was rejected by a vote of 78 to 22. Similar attempts to legalize the practice occurred in Nebraska, New York and recently in the state of Washington. Today most states prohibit assisted suicide; Illinois, Ohio and Michigan call it murder. However the prosecution of those who assisted the suicide is unusual. It is not surprising that there is so much variation from state to state, because doctors themselves do not agree on the morality of active euthanasia. The debate, revolving around euthanasia, is based on several questions: Is euthanasia ethical? Is suffering a preparation for death, and if it is, should people be spared it? Do people have a right to die? Does euthanasia go against the Judeo-Christian beliefs? And the final and most topical question is should euthanasia be legalized?One of the issues that should be given special attention, when discussing euthanasia is the ethical question. Is euthanasia ethical? Derek Humphry, the founder of the Hemlock Society and the author of several books on euthanasia, including Jean's Way, Final Exit, and Dying with Dignity, thinks that suicide and therefore certain form of euthanasia can be justified. Humphry describes two forms of suicide: suicide for mental health reasons, which both he and the Hemlock Society oppose; and justifiable suicide, or "autoeuthanasia". He argues that autoeuthanasia is an acceptable choice for those suffering from terminal illness or severe physical handicap, and he outlines the conditions under which it can be considered an ethical act: "Being a mature adult (age depending on the individual). That it is clearly a considered decision. That the self-deliverance is not made at the first knowledge of the life threatening illness and that reasonable medical help is sought. That the treating physician has been informed and his response taken into account. Have made a will disposing of your worldly effects. Make plans to exit this life, which do not involve others in criminal liability. Leave a note saying exactly why you are self-destructing."(80-81) In those parameters Humphry describes euthanasia as a clear and simple procedure, which in actuality is just the opposite. His point of view applies only to an emotionally healthy person. If an individual is terminally ill, his emotional health and rationality are questionable. Since those parameters cannot apply to the bigger percentage of cases, they cannot judge autoeuthanasia. When patients remain conscious, their sense of integrity and of coherence of their lives crucially affects their judgement about whether it is in their best interests to continue to live. Athletes, for example, or others, whose physical activity was at the center of their self-conception, are more likely to find handicap's life intolerable. Other type of people to find handicap's life intolerable is the dominant type. If throughout their entire lives people lived independently, by their own ideas and beliefs, once put in the situation, where they are no longer dominant, they loose their passion for living. For such people, a life without the power of motion and self-control is unacceptable; it is not worth living. A good example is Friedrich Nietzsche, a great German philosopher of 19th century, who said, "In a certain state it is indecent to live longer. To go on vegetating in cowardly dependence on physicians and machinations, after the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost, that ought to prompt a profound contempt in society" (421). To him the meaning of life was lost, if he could not live independently, physical dependency would sicken his spirit. He wanted "to die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly"(422). Let us however view the countervailing arguments: Does suffering ennoble? Is suffering a part of life and a preparation for death? Another consideration is whether, by taking your life before the illness runs its course, you are depriving yourself and your family and friends of a valuable period of good life, love and companionship. Practitioners of voluntary euthanasia do enjoy their lives, however they want to leave this world under their own control, not driven into coma by some illness. In his book Dying With Dignity, Derek Humphry says: "Helping another to die in carefully considered circumstances is part of good medicine and also demonstrates a caring society that offers euthanasia to hopelessly sick persons as an act of love"(91). People want to be in control of their deaths, it's a God given right and depriving them of euthanasia means depriving them of their right to live and to die, as they want. We cannot think about whether death is in someone's best interests unless we understand this dimension of the interests people have. Sometimes people want to live on, even though the pain is unbearable, in order to do or finish up something important. They want to finish a job, for example, or to learn something they have always wanted to know. Other people want to live on for a more general reason: as long as they have any sense at all, they think that just being alive is something. On the other hand, people often think they have strong reasons of a comparable kind for not staying alive. They are scared to continue: terrible pain or constant nausea or the horror of intubation or the confusions of sedation. Many people just do not want to be remembered living in those circumstances; others think that it is degrading to be wholly dependent, or to be the subject of continuing anguish. People that have been independent their entire lives do not want to be a burden to anybody, especially to those that love them and care about them. At least part of what they fear about dependence is its impact not on those responsible for their care, but on themselves, on their own dignity. This brings us to another important matter: the role of doctors in euthanasia.Suicide is a non-criminal act, yet the law makes it illegal to assist or even to supply the means, for a competent adult to engage in this non-criminal act. Although the possibility of physician-assisted suicide is good news to those who are expected to suffer and then die a long and agonizing death, the majority still shrugs and calls it murder. However, nearly all states recognize the patient's rights to refuse all treatments, including food and fluids, if they are terminally ill and become permanently incompetent. Physicians are legally obligated to follow the patient's decisions. Thus patients have the legal authority to determine the time of their death, even if they don't have the legal authority to determine the method by which they will die. Competent patients also can refuse any treatment, knowing that the death will result, even if they are not terminally ill. This creates a paradox: if an individual can refuse treatment, to purposely end his or her life, why are the doctors not allowed to help do it faster and less painful? If the individual has already made the choice to die, he or she should be shown some compassion and helped.The most famous practitioner of euthanasia is Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Dr. Kevorkian has been charged by the state of Michigan in two cases with illegally assisting a suicide, he and the American Civil Liberties Union have challenged the Michigan law that makes assisted suicide illegal. A Michigan judge released Kevorkian from jail after he promised not to assist in any suicides until all legal issues surrounding the cases between Kevorkian and the State of Michigan have been resolved. Dr Kevorkian has begun a petition drive to legalize assisted suicide in Michigan. He has assisted in the suicide of 20 people. He developed a crude but effective suicide machine that allowed individuals to take their own lives in a painless and efficient fashion. In his book Prescription: Medicide, Dr. Kevorkian states: "A legitimate, comprehensive, and universally valid code of medical ethics no longer exists. In fact, it never did. What has traditionally passed for "ethics" among doctors is a vague body of unwritten rules of obscure origin that loosely prescribes professional etiquette among themselves and for their relationship with patients"(159). The most common answer to the question why the doctors do or do not do things in certain ways is the "Hippocratic Oath", that was formulated by a famous doctor Hippocrates in ancient Greece during the fifth century B.C. For the majority of doctors, especially those over the age of fifty, the oath was something occasionally mentioned in medical school, but rarely studied in detail. However officially all medical ethics have to obey this oath. It is considered to be "a coercive, nondiscriminatory, doctrinaire or...
Battin Margaret Pabst The least worst death: Essays in bioethics and the Endof life, 1994 Oxford university Press, inc88110Humphry, Derek, Dying with Dignity; Carol Publishing Group, New York, New York; 1992. Kevorkian, Jack, Prescription: Medicide; Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York;1991. Battin Margaret Pabst The least worst death: Essays in bioethics and the Endof life, 1994 Oxford university Press, inc88110If you love her help her die, by Betty Rollin. !992 betty rollin william morris Agency on behalf of the author241246MLA Style
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