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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 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 the 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 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, down syndrome 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 kt enology (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. We need rather to evaluate these difficult cases so that we can do better in the future. This was clearly demonstrated in the case of Nigel Cox, the Winchester rheumatologist found guilty of attempted murder after giving a patient with rheumatoid arthritis a lethal injection of potassium chloride in August 1991 (Bender, 8). Although there are many cases in favour of practising euthanasia, there are many viewpoints against the case which should be considered before making a final personal decision.
People vary greatly in their views on what makes life meaningful, at what point life is no longer worth living, and how death should occur. Some people view death as preferable to life in a vegetative state, while others believe that even permanently unconscious persons should be kept alive. Because of these differences, there are only individuals themselves can determine if and when euthanasia is ethical. Many patients are in great pain, like Lillian Boyes, a seventy-year-old Englishwoman who was dying from a terrible form of rheumatoid arthritis so painful that even the most powerful painkillers left her in agony, screaming when her son touched her hand with his finger (Barnard, 13).
Dying is the only option for them to choose in order to release themselves from excruciating pain. Thousands of dying patients in Canada would be comforted to know that, if and when their suffering becomes intolerable, a humane alternative is available to them (Cassel, 92). There are simply too many patients who do not wish to languish in such hopeless situations and will take the measures to preclude such pointless. Professor Wade from the University of Western Michigan stated that, "The current level of suffering in hospitals is barbaric!" (Cassel, 91) Its not easy to die, even if you want to and even it youre terminally ill. A huge number of the right kind of pills will work, but not everyone that sick can swallow. Such people who want to die need help. (And, just as important, people who fear the torture disease can bring need just to know such help would be there. ) Therefore, Physician-Assisted Suicide should be ethical.
Canadians have a common-law and constitutional right to refuse unwanted medical Treatment (Cantor, 2). This right extends to the removal of life-sustaining equipment. This "right-to-die" should extend to aid-in-dying, or active euthanasia, for the terminally ill, at their request. It would be unethical for the Doctors to bring patients to a state of extended suffering and then abandon them there. Patients have the legal authority to determine the time of their death even if they do not have the legal authority to determine the method by which they will die. Competent patients also can refuse permission for nay treatment, including food and fluids, even if it is known that death will result, and even when they The role of the physician is to do what is best for the patient, and in some extreme situations this may include hastening death upon the voluntary request of the dying.
If the role of the physician is defined solely in terms of healing, then, of course, this excludes assisting someone to die. But in some extreme, hopeless circumstances, the best service a physician can render may be to help a person hasten death in order to relieve intolerable, unnecessary suffering that makes life unbearable as judged by the 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 1. Cassel, Christine. "Morals and Moralist in the Debate over Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide." Waltham: Green haven Press, Inc. , 1992. 2. Cantor, L. Norman. "Legal Frontiers of Death and Dying. ." Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987. 3. Barnard, Christiaan Neethling. "Good Life Good Death." Englewood Cliffs, N.
J. : Prentice-Hall, Inc. , 1980. 4. Bender, David et al. "Euthanasia -- Opposing Viewpoints." San Diego: 5. Houses, John. "Born Free -- but we die in chains. " (web free. html).
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Free research essays on topics related to: terminally ill patients, dying patients, terminal illness, rheumatoid arthritis, assisted suicide
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