Euthanasia Essay, Research Paper

If a person is lying on their deathbed with no chance of survival and suffering immensely day after day, is it humane to let them suffer in this manner? If they are begging for relief to their constant pain, and insisting the doctor end their misery. Should we not be obliged in doing so? Say for example you were walking threw the woods one-day and you come across a wounded animal. And you know sooner or later that animal is going to die. What do most people do in this matter? Most people usually pull out their gun and kill the animal where it lays. And why do people do this? They do this because they know if they kill the animal right then and there, it will ease the poor animal of all its pain and suffering. And the animal will die a quick and easy death instead of going through agonizing pain and discomfort. So why is it that people think differently when it comes to us humans? Is killing a human and ending their pain and suffering different from killing the animal? It is similar in many ways. The person killing the animal knows it is going to die, and knows it is in excruciating pain. So he relieves the animal by taking its life. Now, a person knows if he or she is going to die. So instead of putting up with all their suffering, he or she asks a professional or a close family member to assist in ending their pain and misery. And they die with respect and dignity. Shouldn’t everyone have the right to choose the way they live or die?

Medical decisions should always be based on medical, not social, reasons. The “quality” of a person’s life, financial concerns, and the effect of treatment on a patient’s caregivers and family are social reasons and should not be used by a physician to justify the withholding of beneficial medical treatment. There is a point in everyone’s life when death cannot be held off, no matter what means are used. Therefore, it is not morally nor medically required that every possible treatment be given a patient nor that life be preserved at all costs.

A person has the right to die with dignity. People should be allowed to control their own deaths. Why should a patient be forced to live if they think their present

standard of life has been reduced to the point of meaningless, when doctors can no longer help, and perhaps the pain has become unbearable? At this point, if the

person is of sound mind, they should have the choice to continue on or to peacefully die, even if they need assistance in doing so. I believe that the doctor should be allowed to decide if the patient has reached the point of only getting worse and in considerable pain.

In any of these situations a doctor should be at least an advisor, they are the ones with the medical knowledge, and know the present condition of the patient and the alternatives. The advances of technology have disturbed the natural balance of life and death. With the assistance of life- support, a person no longer dies when they are supposed to. People opposing euthanasia say doctors should not play God by killing patients, but do they realize that by prolonging death the medical profession is doing exactly that? Doctors are not always responsible to do everything they can to save somebody. If a doctor’s duty is to ease the pain of his patients, then why should this exclude the possibility of letting them die? If a patient has a terminal illness and is in great pain and the patient thinks they would rather die now than continue living with the pain, the doctor should be allowed to make facilitate their pain.

Still another reason is that doctors are supposed to ease the pain of people, not prolong it. Physicians should not be prohibited by law from lending their professional assistance to those competent, terminally ill persons for whom no cure is possible and who wish for an easy death. It is a crime in itself to allow a person to endure such intolerable pain for extended periods of time. I believe that if it were legal, many physicians would extend their assistance to those ill patients that deserved to die in peace.

I believe that a doctor should do what he can up to a point. If a person is at the point where death is a blessing a doctor should not be forced to save that person who has no chance of survival. Also it might be the patient s decision for nothing to be done, in this case the doctor should do as instructed. My opinion is, that anyone who is terminally ill, should have the choice either to continue on in the, but to all rules there are exceptions, and to something as serious as this, there shouldn’t be.