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Euthanasia
Euthanasia is a Greek term that means ‘easy death’. Not many have heard about this controversial topic. I, myself, wasn’t aware of it until a program on TV opened my eyes to this matter. Euthanasia is mercy killing; helping someone to die out of that person’s own will. My question and what intrigued me to research this topic is: should euthanasia really be punished with jail? and whyis there a law against it?.
The program which I watch with my mother every Thursday is called Mujeres Asesinas. The show features a set of stories of real women who have assassinated someone and gone to jail. One of the latest episodes represented this couple where the husband got really bad lung cancer, meaning he had little time to live. Throughout the show we saw his pain getting worse and thewife suffering and having a hard time seeing her loved one in such agony. There comes a time where she can’t take seeing him suffer in that way any longer and decides to end his life injecting him with more than 5 flasks of morphine. She was sent to jail for two years which I thought was very unfair because all she did was end the suffering of her loved one and I don’t see how that is bad.
As aresult I decided this would be an interesting topic to research and maybe try to see the other side of the argument. As I thought about the topic more I related it to abortion. Many females all over the world, not all, but many abort their babies because the baby won’t have a good life if they are born. I was thinking that is almost the same thing as euthanasia, then why are they not punished forit? I find that even more unfair.
On the other hand I can see why that woman was sent to jail. I mean who is she or anybody in that case to determine when someone is to die no matter how bad they’re suffering. It is practically murder, maybe a peaceful kind of murder? But still if someone is going to die soon why let them suffering a moment longer when you could just end their suffering once andfor all?
In conclusion I think there should be rules for certain cases patients who are most likely going to suffer to their deaths because of a certain diseases should be able to file for their deaths at their request. It is practically suicide but I don’t see why let them keep suffering when it’s already known they’re going to die from it anyways? Should euthanasia, helping someone to die,really be punished?
Euthanasia is the voluntary ending of the life of someone who is terminally or hopelessly ill. (Compton’s) It is currently illegal to pursue this kind of action. The first organized activities on this issue started around the 1930’s. Since then euthanasia has become a very controversial issue, almost as much as abortion has. People come across this option as a possible relievefrom pain, physically or emotionally.
“The landmark case of Karen Ann Quinlan was the first to deal with the dilemma of withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from a patient who was not terminally ill but who was not really ‘alive.’”(Court and the End of Life) The final decision on this Supreme Court case became the precedent of nearly all the right to die cases nationwide. (Court and the End ofLife) Karen was a comatose patient in the late 1970s whose family decided to withdraw her from life-sustaining treatment. Their physician negated their request because according to Harvard criteria Quinlan was not legally brain dead. Therefore removing life-sustaining treatment could be accused as murder of physician-assisted suicide. In 1976 the supreme court ruled that patients, or close relativesif the patient is unable to do so, are allowed to refuse treatment but no one is allowed to assist in suicide (Darr). Because court states that there is a difference between letting a patient die and making a patient die (Darr).
“In the past, the role of the doctor was clear: The physician should minimize suffering and save lives whenever possible. In the present, it is possible for these...