Euthanasia

Cases have been piling up recently over the hot topic of euthanasia. One of the most publicly contested cases was that of Terri Schiavo. In her case, confusion arose over who had the power to keep her alive. To those who make laws, situations such as these could be avoided by passing a law that strictly regulates euthanasia. Euthanasia touches people in ways other topics can’t because you don’t want others to be in pain, which is solved by euthanasia, but you don’t want people to kill themselves, which is against most religious views. Euthanasia has roots as far back as Greek and Roman times, but around 1870 is when the first resistance to it surfaced in the United States (Emanuel).

One of the earliest written examples of euthanasia was in 1516 in the book Utopia by Sir Thomas More in which he suggested that people “end their lives willingly either through starvation or drugs” (qtd. in Emanuel). Euthanasia continued through history and during the 1800’s a new way of helping people who were in pain came about. John Warren first used ether in 1846 to help ease the pain of one of his patients. Another man, Samuel Williams, then proposed to actually end the person’s life instead of just taking away the pain (Emanuel).

Most doctors didn’t want to end the patient’s life and held the stance that they would only administer pain killers to relieve pain. However, patients wanted to have the right to decide there own fate in life. During the early 1900’s a bill was introduced to allow euthanasia to those seriously injured or ill. The bill, which was introduced in Ohio, did not pass as it drew much criticism (Emanuel).

The battle has raged on since then with only Oregon having a law legalizing the use of assisted suicide. Living wills have become very popular and they basically allow the patient to decide to be on life-support or not. Another document is the Power of Attorney for Health Care, which allows the patient to nominate someone to make medical decisions (Humphry).

Among the main types of euthanasia are passive and active euthanasia. Passive euthanasia means that the patient is simply taken of life-support and allowed to die a natural death. Active euthanasia refers to actively ending someone’s life to ease pain. Active is broken down into voluntary, in which the person requests a lethal injection, and involuntary, where the doctor does it without the patient agreeing to it. Assisted suicide is another matter that is described as someone when provides the patient with the lethal materials needed to end their life (Humphry).

A law is needed to enable people to live their lives to the fullest and hang on to life until death is inevitable. Many options are available to resolve this issue; however, some are morally better and some are more feasible. Three main viewpoints are floating around about euthanasia; pro-life, pro-choice, and a mixture of the two which usually has a combination of for or against either passive euthanasia or active euthanasia.

Citizens United Resisting Euthanasia, CURE, is a pro-life organization that resists euthanasia at all costs because it sees it as “surrendering to death” (Statement of Purpose). CURE insists that a person is a valued life and cannot be brain dead; they can only be completely dead when the patients brain stops functioning. That suggests that not only are pro-lifers anti-euthanasia, but also anti-assisted suicide. Pro-lifers fear that allowing euthanasia will create more and more problems. Jonathan H. Pincus, a doctor at Yale University, states his view on the effects of allowing euthanasia, "I have yet to hear of a set of guidelines for euthanasia which would not lead to terrible abuses even in the opinion of those physicians who are sometimes willing to practice it. Inevitably, this form of вЂ?therapy’ would spread to situations in which at present it would be unthinkable” (Quotations on Euthanasia). Many pro-life supporters encourage people to get a Will to Live which ensures that they will have their wishes expressed when they can’t speak. This document acts as your own voice and will be respected no matter what the doctor thinks (Will to Live Project). Advocates of anti-euthanasia mainly agree that everyone has sanctity of life, “which maintains that everyone, created in the image of God, has an intrinsic, God-given value that is not reduced by circumstances” as quoted by Dr. Robert Pankratz. In other words, no one should resort to death because they are crippled by an illness. Also atheists, like Jim Trageser, owner and operator of a pro-life website, hold these views. Pro-life suggests that ending anyone’s life is not morally right. As Trageser states, “Twenty-five years after we legalized killing our own unborn offspring, we now have the government imposing the death penalty on children and the retardedвЂ¦Ð²Ð‚Ñœ From Trageser’s view it is as morally wrong, just without having a higher being dictating it.

This view would be very widely accepted except for a few reasons. One major weakness to this view is that not everyone is a firm believer in a God figure or they just believe it is morally acceptable to end someone’s suffering. Jeff McMahan, a philosopher at the University of Illinois, disagrees with the pro-life view of human value, “There is no sense in which a person’s worth is upheld or affirmed by his mere persistence through suffering” (485). Another key factor is the fact that the United States has always allowed people to be free and completely outlawing euthanasia, in all its forms, is not feasible. The pro-life view believes that modern medicine should be used to its full extent, but what about people that don’t have the means to pay for every operation? These people have the same human value, as defined by CURE, as more wealthy patients, but they can’t afford to keep a loved one alive. By allowing euthanasia, it is something that has a good side for poor and for hospitals too as Dr. Eloise Gawler states, “Economic pressures on health care would provide a strong incentive to encourage euthanasia - it is far less expensive than palliative care, long-term treatment of a debilitating chronic illness or personal assistance for disabled people.”

By living in America many people feel they have the right to do as they want and this feeling is what inspires many pro-choice activists. Some organizations, like Compassion in Dying, agree that if a person is terminally ill then they should have the choice to end their suffering (Pain Management). By allowing a person the right to choose this

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