Euthanasia:

The Right to Die

Modern medical technology has made it possible to extend the lives of many far beyond when they would
have died in the past. Death, in modern times, often ensures a long and painful fall where one loses
control both physically and emotionally. Some individuals embrace the time that modern technology buys
them; while others find the loss of control overwhelming and frightening. They want their loved ones to
remember them as they were not as they have become. Some even elect death to avoid burdens of
lingering on. They also seek assistance in doing so from medicine. The demands for assisted suicide and
euthanasia are increasing (Kass 17).
These issues raise many questions, legal and ethical. Although neither assisted suicide and euthanasia
are legal, many people believe they should be. A great number of those people may never be faced with
the decision, but knowing the option would be there is a comfort (Jaret 46). For those who will encounter
the situation of loved ones on medication, being treated by physicians, sometimes relying on technical
means to stay alive arises a great moral conflict. I wish to explore this topic on ethical, not legal issues.
Do people have a right to choose death? More in particular, are euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide
morally legitimate? Euthanasia involves a death that is intended to benefit the person who dies, and
requires a final act by some other person, for example, a doctor. Physician-assisted suicide, which
requires a final act by the patient, can also be undertaken for the good of that patient. The essential point
is that both involve intentionally ending a human life (Emanuel 521).
But how, some ask, can we ever allow people to intentionally end human lives (even their own lives)
without degrading human life? How, others ask, can we simply prevent people from deciding when to end
their own lives without denying people the freedom so essential to the value of a human life? As these
questions suggests, the debate about the right to choose death may appear to present a stand-off
between people who endorse life's true value, and those who think life's value depends on the interests,
judgments, and choices of the person whose life it is.
Through self identification individuals evaluate their own lives and its quality through their own values and
belief systems. In order to maintain human dignity, the public has to respect these evaluations and allow
individuals to act in accordance to their values. Hence euthanasia should become legalized. The major
assumption in this argument is that the individuals are fully competent and capable of decision making.
The arguments against making euthanasia legal center on two points. The first is the fear that "mercy
killing" will open the door to abuse, allowing a way to kill unwanted people. The second is the Hippocratic
Oath, Physicians must not kill (Meier 1195). On the other hand, death in three or four days through
starvation and dehydration-passive euthanasia, which is both legal and ethical and is a standard way of
easing a terminally ill patient out of the world at his or her request is not the most pleasant way to die.
Once the decision to allow death has been made between physician, patient, and family, what is the
ethical difference between giving a more painless death? Where is the abuse once the decision has been
made to permit death to occur under controlled circumstances?
People often ask why is it normal, and completely appropriate, for a veterinarian to put an aged, suffering
animal to sleep with a lethal injection but not appropriate for humans. The answer has to be that we are
different from animals because we have classified ourselves as such. This creates a problem. A physician
can morally, ethically, and legally allow someone to starve to death. This death is going to take place over
a few days. Would not that be the time for an instantaneous death by injection? A physician is extending
the period of suffering by pulling tubes instead of administering injections.
In some cases it is permissible to knowingly shorten a life by giving-pain relieving medication, such as
morphine, with consent, to a terminally ill patient. So killing the patient by giving morphine for pain relief is
acceptable, but giving the patient morphine for death is unacceptable. The difference is intending death
and foreseeing it. In other cases intending a lesser evil in order to produce a greater good, such as
amputating a leg to remove a cancerous tumor, is performed by doctors occasionally. Why is it wrong for
doctors sometimes to act against a duty to preserve life in order to relieve pain, just as they could
sometimes act against a duty not to intend pain in order to save a life? How can it be wrong to intentionally
shorten a life if it will produce the greater good? As an argument for physician-assisted suicide and
euthanasia, we may cause death as a side effect of medication if it relieves pain. We may intend other
lesser evils to the patient, for the sake of greater good. Therefore when death is a lesser evil, it is
sometimes permissible for us to intend death in order to stop pain.
If physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia were to become legalized, it could become a final control that
a dying patient could have. People who die from a massive heart attack in their sleep are often viewed as
lucky because they did not have to undergo a long and painful death, where one loses control of their
physical and emotional being. Death and dying in its prolonged state has the ability to take away the
patients' dignity. Euthanasia, for some people, may be seen as a more humane way to die.

A solution or a crime

Death is a foregone decision. Every person deserves a choice to live or die. The natural fear people have
of suffering and dying and when cure is no longer likely, there are only two alternatives: euthanasia or
unbearable pain. People who wish to retain their dignity and choices at the end of life should have the
option of a peaceful and gentle death. Euthanasia is one of the most important public policy issues being
debated today. Is this a solution or a crime? The outcome of the debate will affect family relationships,
interaction between doctors and patients, and concepts of basic morality. Some doctors support
euthanasia because they feel that there will always be patients who feel their suffering is senseless, who
have made peace with their dying and want to get it over with. Patients still wish to end their lives in spite
of the very best pain care and emotional support. If they are in a Permanent Vegetative State of mind
(PVS), we should prevent the force-feeding of a patient who has no prospect of recovery and who may not
wish to live artificially.
Euthanasia, also known as “mercy-killing,” means intentionally making someone die, rather than allowing
that person to die naturally. Do we have the right to take a human’s life? Certain religious people do not
oppose euthanasia because they believe that only God has the authority to take a human’s life. Direct
killing of another person is wrong and at the same time, it would also be cruel and inhumane. Every
person has a second chance to regain faith. On the other hand, doctors should have sufficient time to
discuss end-of-life issues with the dying. We must increase our efforts to provide care to those who are
dying, so that assisted suicide does not become the only choice they have. A terminally ill person is
incoherent to decide in a short time of what they want to do.

However, it would require counseling. Euthanasia is not about giving rights to the person who dies but,
instead, is about changing the law and public policy so that doctors, relatives and others can directly and
intentionally end another person’s life. It is not about the right to die. It’s about the right to kill. Euthanasia
could have a positive effect but giving a person the right to decide is the most important. It is nobody’s
decision to take anyone’s life except for that individual himself. Finally, if euthanasia is legalized, then
people or children who cannot make their own decisions could be killed intentionally. The concern of how
a death request would be legalized still remains.