You’re visiting the hospice for the twenty third day in a row, the bright flickering of the fluorescents and the squeaking of the linoleum floor greet you as you walk in. You are visiting your great grandmother, whose ninety three years old with a broken neck, who is unable to speak or eat. She hasn’t talked to you in several weeks due to the feeding tube and has lost the ability to move. She is a hollow shell of the woman she once was and her bright blue eyes have been fading endlessly every day.
Her funny and bubbly attitude has become crushed and every single day as you leave you think to yourself if she should still continue living or not with the way she is. That’s when she’s able to finally talk and whispers “I don’t want to live anymore,” right before you leave. Would you break the law in order to fulfill your great grandmothers wish? This is the cruel reality that we live in with the ability to choose the time of our death, especially for terminal patients, it’s not seen as a personal right to be acted upon, but rather to be shunned.
Euthanasia should be legalized, it would give those who are terminally ill or permanently disabled patients the ability to find peace. Euthanasia is the voluntary termination of one’s own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. Physician-assisted suicide is the practice of providing Mattes 2 a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life.
Euthanasia is classified in four different ways: Active euthanasia, in which a person knowingly gets involved to end someone’s life, this can happen by injecting the patient with a very large dose of sedatives. Passive euthanasia, where a person with intentionally causes death by withholding treatment that is necessary for that person to stay alive, such as keeping antibiotics from someone suffering from pneumonia. Voluntary euthanasia in which a person can make a conscious decision to end his/her life asks for the help to do it.
Nonvoluntary euthanasia is where a person is unable to give his/her consent to end his/her own life and this will often cause another person to make the decision for them, as an example, if the person is in a coma. The last one is involuntary euthanasia, in which a person is killed against their wishes. While it depends on the circumstances, voluntary and nonvoluntary euthanasia can be considered voluntary manslaughter or murder. But involuntary euthanasia is always taken as murder. Our opinions, beliefs and values all depend on the culture and religion and even the society we are part of and where we come from.
Those who are against supporting euthanasia will view it as murder with saying that we as humans need to learn how to value a person’s life. Those who are all for euthanasia often believe that taking a part in euthanasia will allow the patient to stop suffering and his/her pain will go away. And that person has the ability to die with dignity because they were given the right to die. Mattes 3 Euthanasia may be considered as taking a human’s life, but not all kinds of killing are wrong and not considered as murder. It often depends on the underlying intentions and reasons.
If a person’s life is valuable to you and death for the patient would benefit them and not just one’s personal interest, then euthanasia should be legalized. One reason for supporting euthanasia is suffering and pain. “Pain-relief treatment could or even would shorten life”. (32) However, taken in the account of the actual purpose of that being to comfort the person and relieve his/her pain. With providing just a right amount of painrelief treatment it has the ability to extend that person’s life greatly.
It will decrease the patient’s distress both physically and psychologically. Somerville) However, with going another route by overdosing the patient will definitely poison the body and most often cause death. In this case, euthanasia isn’t a right because its main intention is to kill a person, not try to help them and comfort them. Lesley Martin had a interview in which she talked about euthanasia. Lesley Martin is a registered nurse who had moved to New Zealand so she could take care of her mother, Joy. Her mother was diagnosed with bowel cancer and she after she had surgery, many different interventions and complications her cancer had gotten worse and she was slowly dying.
Her mother had asked her to not let her suffer. And before her mother’s death, Lesley had administered twenty mg of morphine. Only after an hour after that, she then gave her another forty mg of morphine. The prescribed dosage of morphine was only ten mg over the span of twenty-four hours. “The purpose of the intervention was to save Joy from dying inch by inch for several days”. (218) Within a Mattes 4 few hours, Lesley had finally fulfilled her promise with not letting her mother suffer. She took it upon herself and killed her mother by suffocating her with a pillow.
She had tried to kill her mother two different ways and she was guilty of overdosing her mother with morphine. Lesley’s intention to end her mother’s life had cost her to be convicted of attempted murder. (Mitchell) In most cases, morphine is used to relieve excessive pain. And with witnessing several people I know take morphine they have not lived long because of the drug’s side effects. There are some doctors who could even increase the dosage if the drug to increase comfort. However, the way this is played out, this kind of euthanasia is acceptable in society because its main goal is to comfort and lessen the person’s suffering.
Unlike the registered nurse, Lesley her emotions about her dying mother had caused her to misjudge her thoughts and actions. Even though Lesley is a registered nurse, it is beyond her right to even increase the dosage of any drug. If the doctor had increased the dosage, then giving her mother that amount would have been considered legal. In that case, she wouldn’t have been charged of overdosing her mother, instead she would’ve been guilty of suffocating her. Pro-euthanasia argues that each and every person has the right to die. The fundamental debate is the quality of the person’s life.
As an example, if a ninety-six year old woman is diagnosed with very severe heart disease and progressive Alzheimer’s disease. Her condition would be considered terminal and she would be more likely to suffer future heart attacks. She could even die within the next few days or weeks. The Mattes 5 only way to save her from future heart attacks is perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation. But since she has been diagnosed with dementia, she is unable to make any decisions for herself. Due to the lack of her mental abilities, many people will view her life as not worth it and she would probably be better off dead.
Instead of saving this patient, many won’t do anything to allow the patient to die. This is morally wrong. However, there are some reasons to this being wrong. Many will say it is unethical to shorten or to end a human life, but it is acceptable to end one’s life if the main purpose is to lessen suffering and benefit the patient in a way. And, if any further treatment will only worsen the health of the patient, then the withdrawal of any kind of treatment is acceptable (Keown, p 46). One very close family friend’s experience is another form of euthanasia.
Her great grandmother had been a dialysis patient for almost fifteen years. One day out of the blue her appendix had ruptured and she needed to undergo appendectomy immediately. While the surgery was successful she suddenly went into cardiac arrest during recovery. She actually survived the heart attack, but as a result she had fallen into a coma. The doctor said a ventilator would be the only way to keep her alive at the moment. Soon after the doctor found out the older woman’s heart was greatly calcified due to the dialysis that lasted many years.
Within a year after, there was no improvement, and they had agreed to take her off of the ventilator. It was a difficult decision, but there was nothing else they could really do. They loved her and wanted to keep her around for as long as possible and because of this they had asked other doctors for his/her opinions about the situation, but unfortunately they had the same Mattes 6 answer. Soon after receiving the same answer they made the difficult decision of putting her great grandmother to rest. Two more examples have a very similar concept.
With judging a person as worthless because of a mental condition will devalue a life. Or even having disabilities or being in a coma or unconscious doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have the right to live. But if any kind of treatment would be considered useless to them and no treatments or medicines could save them or make the person’s condition better than ending that person’s life is legal and acceptable. Euthanasia can be acceptable under certain circumstances. Euthanasia involves taking a life, but not all the forms of killing are considered murder.
So, we shouldn’t agree that euthanasia is totally wrong. In order to respect the value of a human’s life does not mean we necessarily have to make his/her suffering longer than it has to be or to even end his/her life. The number one goal is to comfort the patient and decrease their suffering, even if that involves death. However at the same time, we have to abide the law. But with being very open-minded and considering all the problems that surround the patient’s condition or disease it would greatly help us decide if keeping the patient alive is the best option or not. In which we would result in euthanasia.
