Sample Research Paper on Euthanasia:
The euthanasia movement was upset in 2002 when Nancy Crick, a supporter of active euthanasia, committing suicide by swallowing a fatal dose of medication. At the age of 69, Ms. Crick was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Several friends and family members, who accompanied her at the time of her death, were devastated to learn that the autopsy showed no evidence of new cancer that would have caused her “terminal” death. With this news, the physicians with the Australian Medical Association reconfirmed their standing against active euthanasia (Steel 32).
Human life is sacred and no one should have the right to take that life, therefore active euthanasia, or assisted suicide, should remain illegal. Death should come naturally, with medications as needed to control pain and suffering, but without assisted suicide. Others feel that active euthanasia is the answer and try to promote this as the “dignified death.”
Controversy over euthanasia creates a problem because people are exhausting valuable time, energy, and resources on trying to legalize euthanasia when the existing laws are already adequate. Euthanasia is the term most people associate with helping someone commit suicide, yet this assisted suicide, or mercy killing, is more accurately defined as “active euthanasia.”
In Oregon, laws have been passed to allow physicians the right to preform active euthanasia, also known as physician-assisted suicides. The Hemlock Society, and other similar groups of people, promote active euthanasia and have even attempted to pass laws in California and Washington on this controversial issue during the 1990′s. However, these attempts were rejected. Active euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, but this is the only other country that accepts this type of physician-assisted suicide. The laws in the Netherlands have not prevented euthanasia abuse and have even gone as far as to preform euthanasia upon patients who have not requested it and also are considering its use for infants(Emanuel).
Just because something is legal, as is physician-assisted suicide in Oregon, does not make it right. Did you know that suicide is legal? Suicide and attempted suicide is not against the law. So, instead of trying to help these people with problems of suicidal tendencies we should be supplying them with the means and method of how to finish the job next time (Carter 588). That is absurd! It is the same dilemma with active euthanasia, we should be providing a “better end-of- life experience” in our society without killing. Those who promote active euthanasia tend to want to eliminate “the problem of suffering by eliminating the sufferer” (qtd. May 662).
The idea that life is so easily dispensed of, presents the idea that anyone has the right to bring about death. God is the giver of life and he should be the one to take life away where ideas of active euthanasia are concerned. But all do not agree with this philosophy and feel that each individual has the right to choose. Here in lies part of the problem with euthanasia. Who has the right to decide when and how a person should die? Just because a patient has the right to refuse medical treatment, this does not allow him the same right to request any treatment he wants. In other words, he doesn’t have the right to request assistance to die just because he feels this is correct treatment. If this were the case, then patients would not require prescriptions to get medications, but could simply purchase whatever they felt they needed. Even though patients have a right to make decisions about their own body, it is not enough to justify the legalization of assisted suicide (Orr 133). Physicians should remember their purpose “to save and sustain life and never intentionally do harm or kill” (qtd.Vaux 41). Our focus should be on better pain control methods and better quality of life for those who are dying, not on legalizing active euthanasia.
If active euthanasia were legal it might be abused and lead to great moral decline of our nation, as is the case of legalized abortion. We should be in fear of the moral and ethical issues that would remain with the individuals and society as a whole. “Did the justices who voted to legalize abortion in 1973 really imagine that two decades later, the United States would be home to 1.5 million abortions a year?” writes Carter in Rush to Legal Judgement (qtd. Carter 598). The best way to regulate euthanasia is to have it remain illegal. “There may be certain rare instances in which it is morally justified for a physician to end the life of a suffering patient, but a law designed to cover such expectations is likely to be a bad law” (qtd. Misbin 131).
Rather than attempting to legalize active euthanasia, we should be informing the public of the choices already available and focusing on the real solution of making the end-of-life a painless, meaningful experience. With this knowledge, patients would have more life options and immediate death by lethal injection would not be requested. The time and resources used to persuade people to permit active euthanasia throughout the United States could definitely be put to better use. We could be educating Americans on the need for a Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care to make their end-of-life wishes known. Ideally, doctors and healthcare providers should actually talk to their patients about having a living will without making the patient come to them first. By law, as a patient is admitted to the hospital they are given information on a Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, but perhaps this is not enough. The awareness of end-of-life wishes may be better accomplished by public seminars, television advertisements, or requiring education through drivers license holders, as it is for organ donations. These documents of advanced medical directives are options for a better end-of-life experience, but there are many more choices already existing. Through education the public could be made more aware of these options (Learn About).
Further understanding on how to alleviate pain and research to make pain controlling medications more adequate and available is rapidly becoming a reality. Hospice, a home health organization that cares for a dying person in their home, is a good option that should be examined to make it a cherished experience for the family of a dying loved one rather than just discarding them. Passive euthanasia, which is the ability to withhold or turn off life-sustaining machines, is already being practiced and does not require further legislation, or more laws, to be put it into effect. A Living Will and Durable Powers of Attorney for Health Care are a vital part of passive euthanasia. Also, there is a form of euthanasia, known as double-effect euthanasia, that is legally practiced by giving medication to relieve pain of a dying victim, yet the unintended effect of the medication slows the breathing and hastens death. Death still comes naturally and is not caused by a lethal injection to immediately cause death, as it is in active euthanasia.
Education is the key to making everyone more aware of the options available when a terminal illness is diagnosed or “death with dignity” is desired for an elderly loved one. Active euthanasia is not the answer, but passive euthanasia and double-effect euthanasia lawfully exist for those who understand the options presently available. Therefore, euthanasia’s definition can be accomplished in “permitting the death of hopeless sick or injured individuals in a relatively painless way for the reasons of mercy,” without including, “the act or practice of killing” (Euthanasia).
Our understanding of others point of view in euthanasia is important, but this knowledge should promotes values and protect life. Can you imagine reading a book that explains how to preform assisted suicide, and also instructs on how to make it deceitfully look like a suicide so that the person who assisted would not be charged for murder? In Derek Humphry’s book, Final Exit, he does just this. There are chapters dedicated to methods, dosages of medications, and uses of plastic bags over the head to suffocate the victim to death (Humphry 97-123). Dying with dignity may be important, but this doesn’t seem like the way to go about it. How would you feel if the victim with the bag over his head was your grandfather? Is this death with dignity?
Prolonged pain and suffering, when death is apparent, is not right either, so their must be other options that are more suitable. If the pain could be controlled for a dying cancer victim yet also allows them to be functional, wouldn’t this be more acceptable, or even desirable? Our society, along with other countries throughout the world, are seeking a “better death” without excessive pain and suffering (Vaux 37). Let’s pull our resources together to find a end-of-life experience that we can all grow from. With this knowledge we may prolong a person’s life and allow a dying father to see his daughter’s marriage ceremony, or a elderly grandmother hear her grandchild say, “I love your stories Grandma, I learn so much.” We sell ourselves short if we think active euthanasia is an acceptable option for finding a “better death.”
From a doctors view point, Dr. Robert Orr writes that “compassion means ‘to suffer with.’ Compassionate patient care involves coming alongside patients who are suffering, being with them, and doing all we can to alleviate that suffering. Killing is not compassionate.[...] The alternative is excellent end-of-life care (qtd. Orr 133). This would not only benefit the patient, but also the patient’s family and friends. Life is a journey made up of experiences that help us to grow. This may includes episodes of the dying process. May writes, “The best death is not always the sudden death. Those forewarned of death and given time to prepare for it have time to engage in act of reconciliation. [...] The chance to grieve before a loved one dies can be helpful for those who must go on living after the patient’s death” (May 662).
Consider how you feel about dying. Each of us will have to face the death of a loved one and even the process of dying ourselves. We may think of cancer as an old persons disease, but it can attack people at any age, even college students. Issues of death concern everyone since we are all alive and someday we must die (Barnard vi). As college students, many of us will choose careers in the area of health, medicine, or ethics, and therefore the idea of active euthanasia will be debated in professional settings, as well as personal affairs. My mother is a nurse and deals with some of these issues even now in her career.
Despite its reputation, death is not always bad. The part of dying process which causes many to favor active euthanasia is the prolonged suffering, extreme pain, and fear of the inability to effectively function in life. It is not final death that concerns us so much, as it is the negative end-of-life experience it may bring. So, if doctors could guarantee a high quality of life up to the moment of “natural” death, could this be the solution to the euthanasia dilemma? Along with proposed solution of education, we must also continue research and promoted excellent palliative care to bring about a “better end-of-life” rather than a “better death.” “Doctors can best respond to euthanasia movement by providing better terminal care” (qtd. Misbin 132). The fear of suffering and death must be eliminated.
Active euthanasia, where it is legal, is suppose to be reserved for the terminally ill. Who’s to say who is terminally ill? Aren’t we all terminally ill? Consider this, a person dying of cancer is told they will only live for another six months, but two years later this same cancer victim is living a productive life.
Jennifer Lindauer, one of our fellow classmates who critiqued my last paper on euthanasia, writes this true life story:
“My grandmother was diagnosed with lung cancer and the doctors gave her four to six weeks to live and said there was no medical treatment that could help her. Fourteen weeks later, she was still alive and feeling better every day. We took her in for a second opinion and found that radiation, surgery, and chemotherapy were option for her. By going through those procedures, a year and a half later she was able to see me graduate from high school. This just goes to show that no one can truly know when their time to go is and it is always good to get second, or third opinions before making any drastic life changing decisions” (qtd. Lindauer).
Perhaps my own great-grandmother, who was lonely and terminally ill, would have chosen to die long before she did, but I’m glad that I had the chance to laugh with her and know her before her natural death. In these cases, it would be wrong if active euthanasia was preformed and these people’s lives were intentionally cut short. Doctors have education and experience that helps them diagnose conditions and life expectancies, but they are still only human. Humans make mistakes and deciding the hour of a person’s death is too important to be tampered with. Life is sacred and of great value, it is our right and duty to protect this God-given existence. If we start medaling in matters of life and death, we are bound to have problems.
One such example of human’s error would be Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who promoted active euthanasia and used his suicide machine to assisted in over 100 deaths in America. He is now serving a 25-year sentence for second-degree murder. As of December 2000, new findings published in The England Journal of Medicine found that out of 69 of the deaths by the hand of Kevorkian, 75 percent were not terminally ill and five had no apparent disease (New Revelation). Dr. Kevorkian, drawing media attention, was also known as Dr. Death. If we were to legalize euthanasia throughout America, how many more Dr. Deaths would be at liberty to promote and preform active euthanasia? Each case, if considered to be active euthanasia, is legally examined through the justice system and should remain this way. By doing this, the law can determine whether it is a case of murder or mercy for each specific incident. If active euthanasia were legalized, it would not require each case to be examined and Kevorkian could still be preforming these acts of murder.
Murder is against the law and there are many laws to protect life. Life is sacred and the end of life should be controlled by God, the one who knows us best and gives us life’s challenges. Enduring to the end of life and making this experience toward death positive is one of those challenges. Legalizing and promoting active euthanasia is not the answer, but increasing the public’s awareness of options now available and extending research is. Active euthanasia should remain illegal. By doing this, we are protecting our rights and allowing the focus to be on providing better care at the end-of-life instead of regulating the killing of the “terminally ill.”
AdvancedWriters.com is a professional custom writing service which can provide high school, college and university students with 100% original custom written essays, research papers, term papers, dissertations, courseworks, homeworks, book reviews, book reports, projects, presentations and other assignments of top quality. More than 550 professional Ph.D. and Master’s academic writers. Feel free to order a custom written research paper online on any topic, in any discipline and with any deadline you need.