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... rights. org / death net /bar 4. gif> Need for both methods Some claim that it is sufficient to legalize physician-assisted suicide and not voluntary euthanasia as well.
I have never taken that halfway view. Here's why: - (a) Physician-assisted suicide (drinking prescription lethal medication) is not as efficient as voluntary euthanasia (lethal injection). Even using the best barbiturates, the oral route takes much longer - up to 11 hours in a few cases - which is a terrible strain on family present. In the Netherlands, doctors will only let such a case linger for four hours before administering a lethal injection. Injection into a vein always ends of the life of the patient within about ten minutes. (b) Some terminally ill patients are unable to drink, or keep down, the lethal fluid because of invasive surgery. If help in dying is restricted to those who can take oral fluids, then a great many patients who most need help are sidelined. (c) As the constant attacks on the Oregon law show, the pro-life movement will seek to destroy any and all laws on assisted dying, no matter how moderate and limited.
So the right-to-die movement should fight to legalize what is best for the patient - both methods - and make no concessions to the religious right. But let us see what their main arguments are. Some arguments against Having considered the logic in favor of euthanasia, a person should also contemplate the arguments against it: - First, should the person go instead into a hospice program and receive not only first-class pain management but also comfort care and personal attention? Hospices by and large do a great job with skill and love. The right-to-die movement supports their work. But not everyone wants a lingering death; not everyone wants that form of care.
Today many terminally ill people take the marvelous benefits of home hospice programs and still accelerate the end when suffering becomes too much. Some 60 percent of those who took advantage of the Oregon physician-assisted suicide law the first two years were in hospice care. A few hospice leaders claim that their care is so excellent that there is absolutely no need for anyone to consider euthanasia. They are wrong to claim perfection. Neither hospice nor euthanasia has the universal answer to all dying. Fortunately most, but not all, terminal pain can today be controlled with the sophisticated use of drugs, but the point these leaders miss is that personal quality of life is vital to some people.
If one's body has been so destroyed by disease that it is not worth living, then that is an intensely individual decision which should not be thwarted. In some cases of the final days in hospice care, when the pain is very serious, the patient is drugged into unconsciousness ('terminal sedation'). If that way is acceptable to the patient, fine. But some people do not wish their final days to be spent in that drugged limbo.
There ought not to be conflict between hospice and euthanasia -- both are valid options in a caring society. Both are appropriate to different people with differing medical needs and ethical values. Later in the 21 st century, I am confident that hospice will become a place where people go either for comfort care, terminal sedation, or for assisted suicide. It is the appropriate place for a dignified end. Religious feelings Another consideration is theological: does suffering ennoble? Is suffering, and relating to Jesus Christ's suffering on the cross, a part of preparation for meeting God?
Are you merely a steward of your life, which is a gift from God, and which only He may take away? My response is this: if your answer to these questions is 'Yes, God is my master in all things, ' then you should not be involved in any form of euthanasia. It just does not fit. There are millions of atheists and agnostics, as well as people of various religions, degrees of spiritual beliefs, and they all have rights to their choices in abortion and euthanasia, too.
Many Christians who believe in euthanasia justify it by reasoning that the God whom they worship is loving and tolerant and would not wish to see them in agony. They do not see their God as being so vengeful as refusing them the Kingdom of Heaven if they accelerated the end of their life to avoid prolonged, unbearable suffering. Another consideration must be that, by checking out before the Grim Reaper routinely calls, is one depriving oneself of a valuable period of quality life? Is that last period of love and companionship with family and friends worth hanging on for? Our critics heavily use the argument that this is the case. Not necessarily so!
In my twenty years in this movement, and being aware of many hundreds of self-deliverances, I can attest that even the most determined supporters of euthanasia hang on until the last minute -- sometimes too long, and lose control. The wiser ones gather with their families and friends to say good-byes; there are important reunions and often farewell parties. There is closure of wounds and familial gaps just the same as if the person was dying naturally - perhaps more so since the exact timing of the death is known. Euthanasia supporters enjoy life and love living, and their respect for the sanctity of life is as strong as anybody's: sanctity as distinct from sacredness.
They are willing, if their dying is distressing to them, to forego a few weeks or a few days at the very end and expire at a time of their choice. Moreover, they are not the types to worry what the neighbors will think. A doctor's choice There is another rightist argument that the acceptance of euthanasia practices will quickly destroy the traditional bond of trust between doctor and patient; that the patient will never know if the doctor is going to kill them or not; that commercialized medical practices will jump at the chance to get rid of long-term patients who are short of insurance funding. Those arguments have been answered by the 20 years euthanasia has been practiced in the Netherlands, and by the nearly three years physician-assisted suicide has been available in Oregon. No evidence of a breakdown in relationships has emerged. Those doctors who are ethically opposed to hastening the end of life just don't do it.
The laws in the Netherlands, Oregon, and the ones which have failed to pass, all give medical professionals the right to refuse to be involved -- a conscience clause. This exemption will always be so as far as I am concerned. In fact, many patients hold their medical advisors in higher regard if they know that he or she will go to great lengths to keep them from terminal suffering, even to the extent of providing, if necessary, a gracious final exit. Comfort of knowledge What people often do not realize is that, for many, just knowing how to kill themselves is itself of great comfort. It gives them the assurance to fight harder and therefore often extends lives just a bit longer. Many people have remarked to me that my book, 'Final Exit' is the best insurance policy they " ve ever taken out.
Once such people know how to make a certain and dignified deliverance, with loved ones supporting them, they will often renegotiate the timing of their death. For example, a man in his 90 s called to tell me his health was so bad he was ready to terminate his life. I advised him to read 'Final Exit, ' which he did and he called me back. He had managed to get hold of lethal drugs from a friendly doctor and so everything was in position. "So what are you going to do now?" I asked him. "Oh, I'm not ready to go yet, " he replied. "I've got the means, so I can hold on a bit longer. " Now he had the knowledge, the drugs, and encouraged by the control and choice now in his grasp, he had negotiated new terms with himself concerning his fate. Surely, for those who want this way, this is commendable and is in fact an extension rather than a curtailment of life's span. Thanks to the work in the last century of a forceful right-to-die movement, a hidden reality has emerged about terminal suffering, indicating that the time has come for change.
What are needed now are laws permitting voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide surrounded with a bodyguard of rules -- but not so many that the patient in unable to jump through all the hoops. With the inevitability of gradualness, as the idea takes hold amongst rising generations, reform will undoubtedly come. We who believe must ceaselessly work for it.
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Research essay sample on Physician Assisted Suicide Voluntary Euthanasia
