Essay on Euthanasia

Euthanasia Term Papers

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Euthanasia : for and against


FOR:


At any one time, over 10,000 patients in Canada are in a permanently vegetative


State (Bender, 34). In addition, thousands of profoundly handicapped infants are born each year. As life-


sustaining medical technology continues to improve and lengthen the process of dying, those numbers will


steadily increase. This, along with several other factors, is why euthanasia should be legalized throughout


the world.



Allowing doctors to administer a lethal dose is much more merciful to dying patients than allowing them to


die slowly and painfully from a terminal disease. Everyone must die. And almost everyone comes to a


point where they, or a loved one, knows they are dying and must decide what to do. Euthanasia will mean


the act of ending the life of a person, from compassionate motives, when he/she is already terminally ill or


when his suffering has become unbearable.



People who, perhaps because of a serious illness or perhaps for reasons unrelated to their illness, are


extremely depressed and say they want to die. These people are not different than anyone else who thinks


about suicide -- they just have medical problems in addition to their emotional or psychological problems.


Some ill people become frustrated that they cannot lead the kind of active lives that they used to before


their illness. Some feel guilty about being a burden on their family. Voluntary euthanasia is unnecessary


because alternative treatments exist. It is widely believed that thre are only two options open to patients


with terminal illness: either they die slowly in unrelieved suffering or they receive euthanasia (Barnard, 1).


In fact, there is a middle way, that of creative and compassionate caring. Meticulous research in Palliative


medicine has in recent years shown that virtually all unpleasant symptoms experienced in the process of


terminal illness can be either relieved or substantially alleviated techniques already available (Cassel, 45).



A patient with a terminal illness is vulnerable. They lack the knowledge and skills to


alleviate their own symptoms, and may well be suffering from fear about the future and


anxiety about the effect theri illness is having on others. It is very difficult for them to be


entirely objective about their won situation. Those who regularly manage terminally ill


patients recognize that they often suffer from depression or a false sense of

worthlessness which may affect their judgment. Their decision-making may equally be


affected by confusion or troublesome symptoms which could be relieved with


appropriate treatment. Terminally ill patients also adapt to a level of disability that


they would not have previously anticipated they could live with. They come to value


what little quality of life they have left.



Many elderly people already feel a burden to family, careers and society which is cost


conscious and may be short of resources. They may feel great pressure to request


euthanasia ‘freely and voluntarily’. These patients need to hear that they are valued


and loved as they are. They need to know that doctors are committed first and foremost to


their well-being, even if this does involve expenditure of time and money. The way


doctors can treat the dying and most vulnerable people speaks volumes about the kind of


society we can and should be.



When the focus changes from curing the condition to killing the individual with the


condition, this whole process is threatened. The increasing acceptance of prenatal


diagnosis and abortion for conditions like spina bifida, downsyndrome and cystic


fibrosis is threatening the very dramatic progress made in the management of these


conditions, especially over the last two decades (Bender, 18). Rather than being employed to care and


console, funds are being diverted to fuel the strategy of ‘search and destroy’ If euthanasia is legalized


advances in ktenology (the science of killing) at the expense of treatment and symptom control are very


likely to occur. This will in turn encourage further calls for euthanasia.



What we are considering is not the right to die at all, but rather the right to be killed by


a doctor; more specifically we are talking about giving doctors a legal right to kill. This


has its own dangers which we should consider. Allowing difficult cases to create a


precedent for legalized killing is the wrong response. ...

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