Euthanasia is the termination of life. There are different types of euthanasia. Active euthanasia is the death of a person through a direct action, in response to a request from that person. Involuntary euthanasia is the killing of a person who has not explicitly requested aid in dying (Robinson). So the question comes up, is euthanasia right? I say yes.
If a patient is terminally ill and is going to die anyways, then I think that it is ok for them to go ahead and end their lives. The patient might be in for a long road of suffering; most people don’t want to suffer so they chose to take their lives instead. Some people see a life spent in a hospital bed in constant pain as a life not worth living. I personally would not want that. It would be awful to just lay there day in and day out, unable to do anything just waiting for the day that you finally die. So some patients may decide that if that is the way they are going to spend the rest of their lives, then just dieing is much better. Generally people want to die in peace, without pain. Euthanasia may allow them to die peacefully, before they have to go through terrible pain.
Sometimes a person chooses to end their lives when they may not be dying but the way they will have to live isn’t favorable. People with different types of cancer may have to live the rest of their lives in difficult ways. People with neck cancer sometimes have sores on their neck that ooze fluids. This isn’t exactly something most people are able to deal with. Some patients may have a disease that causes them to be bed ridden. Living the rest of your life in bed, which could be for years, doesn’t sound like much fun. They might not be able to get up and even go to the bathroom, so they rely on a catheter and nurses to change their bed. I don’t know of anyone who would enjoy that. In many cases living seems worse than death, and in some cases this is true.
Also, when a person is being kept alive only by machines, I think that taking them off this life support and letting them die is the right thing to do. Because these people usually aren’t in a state to say if they want to die or not, this is the most controversial type of euthanasia. Some people have living wills that say rather or not if they want to be kept alive by machines. When a person doesn’t have a living will and they can’t communicate what they want done, then it is left up to the family to decide if they keep that person alive. If a person is still living only because of a machine, then they are pretty much already dead. I think it is only right to let them go ahead and leave this world.
On the other hand, some people see euthanasia as being bad. For some people it goes against their religious morals. Christians see suicide as a sin. They think that God will disapprove of them taking their own lives. But does God really want us to suffer for the rest of our lives? There are some that see involuntary euthanasia as murder. They think that the only person who should decide if a patient dies, is the patient themselves. If that person can’t express what they want done, then they think that no one has the right to kill them. I think that taking them off this life support is the humane thing to do. It is releasing them from a life that they aren’t living.
Euthanasia is a very controversial topic. Some people find it unethical. They think that morally it isn’t the right thing to do. Others think it is ethically ok. They find it ethical when someone is terminally ill and just waiting for the day they die, or when they are suffering and the life they have isn’t really much of a life. When a person is being kept alive by machines, some people think that taking them off and letting them die is the moral thing to do. I think that euthanasia is ethical. Life is worth living, but when you are unable to live your life, then maybe dieing is the best thing to do.
Works Cited
Robinson, B.A. “Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide: Introduction.” Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. 2002. 30 Sep. 2009.