Essay on Argument about Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide
When a person is fatally ill or pain is truly unbearable, sometimes he or she may be killed by his or her own will to stop the sufferings. The process of life termination committed by the doctor at the patient’s request is called euthanasia (voluntary euthanasia, if to be more distinct). Ending life with the assistance of a doctor is also known as physician assisted suicide. Assistance may include providing drugs or other means for easy and painful death, disconnection of life support system and so on. There is different attitude to the process of euthanasia throughout the world, and in contemporary bioethics it is one of the most active debates. Although there is much criticism of physician assisted suicide, the countries where it is legalized (like the Netherlands and Belgium) may have a point.
It goes without saying that ending one’s life, no matter what the reasons are, is hard to be justified. The opponents of euthanasia make a stress on the value of human life, and various religious, ethical and biological reasons are listed. In Christianity, for example, it is believed that life is given by God and thus can be taken away by God only. Death is a road without a return ticket, while there is always hope for better ending. The pain, meanwhile, can be ceased by strong medicaments, while life is the highest value one can ever get, even if it is full of sufferings. What is more, it is stated that legalizing assisted suicide can place the society on a slippery slope (Smith 1997).
Still, each person has a right to live and should be able to reject this right and exercise the right not to live. Already having such a right can bring relief to a person: while knowing that a person can end his own sufferings at any moment without being accused of that can save a person from despair. Even when physical pain is taken away, the person may go on suffering morally, while he has no future, he is a burden for his family and his own helpless body is a burden for himself. If a person has lost its personality, there is hardly any value in life of a vegetable. From a religious pint of view, while a soul may also strive for liberation, it should receive freedom.
Of course, it would be irrational to legalize assistance in death by the first claim of a sufferer. The reasons for such a decision should be thoroughly weighted, and probably a commission should be gathered, because it is hard not to admit that legalized physician assisted suicide presents new opportunities for abusing physician’s position (for example, relatives of the patient may benefit from his death and bribe the doctor for euthanasia). To a certain extent, it is also a way of permitting suicide on the whole, while it may turn into an even more serious social challenge that it is now. But after all, anything can be turned into a weapon in evil hands.
Decision should be made on the basis of ultimate good, like it is valued within utilitarian. If a person can commit physician assisted suicide, the person himself may receive the desired relief; the relatives may get rid of a burden without extra moral tortures, and what is more, it will be cheaper for them or for the state than to support life in a body without spirit. Although it may sound too pragmatic, it is necessary to depart from reason, not from sentiment, and death with dignity is something all of us would deserve. We are born in suffering, we suffer throughout living, then why not to rest in peace when these sufferings become unbearable and senseless?
