Assisted Suicide Essay, Research Paper

Assisted Suicide

It is upsetting and depressing living life in the shadow of death.

Many questions appear on this debatable topic, such as should we

legalize euthanasia? What is euthanasia? What is assisted suicide? What

is the difference between Passive and Active Euthanasia? What is

Voluntary, Non-voluntary and Involuntary Euthanasia? What is Mercy

Killing? What is “Death with dignity”? But if euthanasia was legalized,

wouldn’t patients then die peacefully rather than using plastic bags or

other methods? And unfortunately the list continues. No one denies

that there are many vulnerable persons who require the protection of

the law. Take, for example, those in a temporary state of clinical

depression, perhaps caused by a traumatic event in their lives. These

persons will recover and go on to lead productive, happy lives, and it

would be unconscionable to encourage or support them in a transitory

wish to die. There are also many unemployed and unemployable, many

disabled of all ages, and many senior citizens whose families might,

for selfish or downright malicious reasons, encourage them to seek

assisted suicide. All kinds of people in difficult situations could be

at risk of being intimidated or forced into feeling their early death

would be a convenience to society. Section 241 is doubly flawed. It is

not an especially effective drawback against those who seek to prey on

the vulnerable, but at the same time it forces persons enduring

intolerable suffering to exist in that state against their own wishes,

thus denying them their right of self-determination as citizens in a

free democracy. Competent, rational human beings must have the right to

determine their own health care according to their personal wishes,

values and beliefs, as long as such a determination does not jeopardize

the safety or well-being of any other person. We do not believe, for

instance, that people have the right to kill themselves by driving

recklessly and in so doing jeopardize the safety of others. To kill

oneself by causing an explosion that will inevitably put others at risk

is horror. It is also reproachable to end one’s own life without regard

to the trauma it might inflict on the vulnerable. People shall never

forget the horror suffered by two young children who arrived home after

school to find their mother hanging from the hall chandelier, or by a

teen-age boy who found his father with his head blown apart from a

self-inflicted shotgun wound in the kitchen of their home. We also

need to consider the anguish of family members, friends and even

health-care professionals who must continue to witness, day after day,

the suffering of people they love and wish to help.

If a remedy for such suffering does not exist within the law, people

will have recourse to the unwritten law of simple justice. Proponents

of euthanasia argue that “mercy-killing” is necessary because patients

particularly those with terminal illness, experience uncontrollable

pain. They argue that the only way to alleviate the pain is to

eliminate the patient. But is there a better way? In the last few

years a number of court cases have shown the quandary the legal system

is in about this issue. In a recent presentation to the Supreme Court,

Dying With Dignity outlined some of these problems.

“Developments in the medical sciences and in the protection of human

dignity have created expectations in Canadians that they will be able

to exercise greater control over fundamental issues respecting personal

autonomy and human dignity, bodily integrity and issues of life and

death…. The advances in medical science, and in particular the

capacity of medical science to intervene in the natural cycle of life

and death, have led also to a re-examination of many fundamental

issues, including the protection Canadian society should accord to the

values of sanctity of life. Of particular importance… is the

circumstances under which a person may determine the manner and time of

his or her own death.”

The Case of Sue Rodriguez

Canada’s most important (to date) dramatic and high-profile court case

with respect to the issue of physician-assisted suicide took place in

1992-93. Sue Rodriguez, a young woman aged forty when she was first

diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou

Gehrig’s disease) is an intelligent, aware person. She had done her

research and knew full well the death that was in store for her. Mrs.

Rodriguez, mother of a small child, knew that the disease would

gradually rob her of the ability to walk, move her body at will, eat

and finally breathe without mechanical assistance. Her mind would

remain alert, however, trapped in the shell of her body. Sue Rodriguez

did not find dignity in such a life and wished instead to circumvent

such an end by requesting physician-assisted suicide at a time and in a

manner of her own choosing. She determined that she would like to

activate a machine that would facilitate her death, but would also like

to have a physician present, in case, through some unpredictable

eventuality, something went awry and she needed further aid in dying.

Christopher M. Considine, lawyer for Mrs. Rodriguez, took her case to a

lower court, to the Supreme Court of British Columbia, which denied her

request, and then to the B.C. Court of Appeal. In the judgment on

appeal from the Court of Appeal, the decision was lost by a vote of two

to one. Justice McEachern in his dissenting opinion, based mostly on

arguments relating to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

presented by Mrs. Rodriguez’s counsel, outlined a set of guidelines by

which he felt Mrs. Rodriguez could be granted her wish. The matter

then proceeded with unusual speed to the Supreme Court of Canada. On

May 20, 1993, the Supreme Court of Canada heard the Appeal of Sue

Rodriguez v. Attorney General of British Columbia and Attorney General

of Canada. This is just one case of thousands upon thousands of people

who seek help and the only way which they know how to help themselves

is by elimination. In closing, we must emphasize that the issue is now

out in the open. As the proliferation of media items attests, it will

not disappear from the Canadian scene just because it makes some

people uncomfortable. Simple humanity demands a resolution to this

debate, either in the courts or in legislation.