Paper Example on Legalization of Euthanasia

Introduction

Euthanasia is a deliberate ending of someone's life painlessly with a reason to end the pain and suffering of that particular person. Euthanasia is also referred to as mercy killing or assisted suicide. There is the classification of euthanasia into voluntary and non-voluntary. The voluntary one involves an ill person requesting to get assistance to die with knowledge of his or her decision (Keown 114). The non-voluntary euthanasia happens when a patient is a coma and unable to decide on his or her life. The controversy surrounding the issue of euthanasia has been a cause of public debate. Some argue that the procedure should be legal while others are against its legalization. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the reasons why euthanasia should not be legal.

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The supporters of mercy killing hold a view that the procedure helps to stop suffering and agony to patients and their family members. Ethical concerns are surrounding the euthanasia procedure (Fletcher & Joseph 94). For instance, in developed countries, where there are many options regarding treatment, euthanasia is illegal and a crime. For example, in a country like Britain, helping a person to die is breaking the law and is an offense that may lead to life imprisonment. Also, in the United Kingdom, medical personnel accepting to assist a person suffering from a terminal illness to die attracts a jail term of 14 years. In the United States, legalizing of euthanasia varies from one state to another. The legality of euthanasia depends in the state in which the doctor and the patient live and the circumstances surrounding the patient.

There are four points of view that people opposed to euthanasia use to argue. The first one is the religious argument that is common in both Christianity, Jewish, and Islam religions. The discussion emphasizes the sacredness of life. Allowing mercy killing weakens the human being's sanctity to life. Ending someone's life because of suffering is not justifiable. Religious people argue against assisted suicide because they believe that there are constructive consequences that result from pain. Most religions advice that we should help relieve suffering by being together with those people that are going through it by helping them to bear the suffering. People should never deal with distress by getting rid of those humans that suffer. It is wrong to kill oneself or to get someone to do it on our behalf as it denies God the right over our lives, His choice of length of our lives and His will on how our lives should end. The proposers of this argument explain that human beings are a creation of God, and living in itself is sacred. Therefore, human beings have a limitation on carrying out some acts like ending the life of another person. God is the only Supreme Being that can choose to end the lifespan of a human being. Performing euthanasia is acting against the will of God and is sinful.

There is also a slippery slope argument which generally declares that allowing something relatively harmless to be a norm would result in a trend where something unthinkable and dangerous would become acceptable. According to this argument, many people are afraid that if intentional mercy killing is permitted, then it would lead to involuntary euthanasia starts to happen. The slippery slope reasoning is centered on the notion that if a medical care sector, through its country's authority, decides to end its citizen's life, then there would be crossing of a line that should have never been passed. Allowing death of citizens leads to the formation of a dangerous precedent. Legalizing euthanasia would result in unforeseen consequences like discouragement of research in palliative care and potential remedies for persons with terminal illness. Besides, allowing mercy killing will make it easier to murder because some perpetrators may masquerade involuntary euthanasia as active voluntary euthanasia.

Another argument is the medical ethics argument which states that legalizing assisted suicide is violating one of the greatest essential health principles. The international code of ethics requires doctors to always put in mind that their chief obligation is to preserve the life of a human being right from conception. Allowing doctors to abandon their duty could fatally destroy the relationship between patients and doctors. The act of causing death will make doctors lose their compassion towards the elderly, the disabled, and to patients with terminal illnesses.

There is also an alternative argument. The reasoning explains that since there are developments in palliative and mental medical care, there should be no cause for any individual to feel that he/ she is suffering intolerably, be it physical, mental, or both. Palliative attention is spiritual, emotive, and physical care for a person that is almost dying. According to the World Health Organization, palliative care gives assurance to live and looks at death as a normal progression (Keown 120). The palliative care should be used as an alternative to euthanasia. The attention neither delays passing away nor postpones it, but it provides a relief from agony and anguish. Providing good palliative care to patients with a terminal illness would probably decrease the desire of dying. Allowing euthanasia might diminish the provision of analgesic care in the community for the medical structure will opt for the ways that are cost-effective in dealing with dying patients. Some healthcare experts consider injecting a patient with a lethal drug is quick and cheaper as compared to providing treatment care. According to this argument, if there is the provision of required maintenance and atmosphere, then there will be no reason why a patient cannot have an honorable and unproblematic natural demise.

Apart from the arguments, there are other reasons why euthanasia should not be legalized. For instance, if the procedure is made legal, then it will not apply to patients with terminal illness alone but will also extend to people with non- terminal illness. With time the word terminal has gained different definitions. According to Muson et al. (215), a terminal sickness is any is any disease that leads to the end of life even in one day. Some laws also define terminal as any condition that curtails death in a relatively short time. Therefore, some medical experts persist that it is not easy to predict life expectancy a patient considered to be terminally ill. There have been cases where some people who had a diagnosis of a terminal illness did not die for years from the condition they were diagnosed with (Sharp 216). Example of a famous case in euthanasia is about Karen Ann Quinlan who took poison and went into a coma. She stayed in the hospital with the use of life support machines. The doctors tried their best to bring her back to life, but she could not recover from the coma. After some time the parents to Ann Quinlan requested the doctors to disconnect her from the life-supporting apparatus. After several legal procedures, they were granted the permission to disconnect her from lifesaving apparatus so that she may die and stop the suffering. Strangely, Ann did not die but continued to live after being disconnected from the machines though in a vegetative state. She died nine years later due to pneumonia_ this a case that sparked the debate on legalizing euthanasia.

Another reason against euthanasia is that the medical experts may use it as a means of healthcare cost containment. The recent developments healthcare development is the emphasis of health service providers to suppress cost. In this environment, euthanasia may become one of the methods to control cost because drugs used for assisted suicide cost approximately 40 dollars as compared to the cost of treating the same patient which requires about 40,000 dollars (Radbruch et al. 98). For instance in the United States, the poor do not have medical covers and are denied access to available pain treatment. Therefore, the managed care facilities give their medical personnel bonuses if they fail to provide care to patients because they controlled the cost. If doctors give the required upkeep to the patients, they face financial risk hence the stress on managed care. For example in Oregon, immediately after the legalization of euthanasia, the Medicaid director announced that the physicians that will aid in assisted suicide will get paid for the 'comfort care' that they have provided to a patient. In this case, the comfort care is helping a patient to die a painless death. Lawful mercy killing promotes the possibility of an intensely hazardous situation in which medics may find themselves better in financial matters if a critically ill or disabled individual chooses to terminate his/her life instead of receiving long-term care. The government may consider the mercy killing as a means of saving finances. The state may decide to cut back on treatment spending and replace them with death treatment which will be viewed cheaper compared to life treatment.

Legalizing euthanasia would lead to the rise in suicide cases. If the media sources portray mercy killing as the best way of taking control, or assisting someone to end life is a dignified death, then people in the society will understand the information that suicide is a genuine solution to life's problem. Therefore, the teenagers would not be able to tolerate any pain and suffering because they have an option of ending their agony through death (Somerville 158). It would be easier for a depressed person to go to a doctor to request drugs to stop his/her own life. The physician would not deny him/her because assisting someone to die is lawfully accepted.

Euthanasia is a sign of rejecting the essence and value of the life of a human being. The proponents for mercy killing procedure argue that there is permission to take a human life under some extraordinary circumstances like self-defense as an act of saving an innocent life. What they do not understand is that in euthanasia, there is a taking of innocent life without saving any other person's life.

Lawful acceptance of euthanasia will result in a feeling of guilt to patients with a terminal illness. There could be emotional and psychological factors that could overpower the depressed or a dependent person. If there is consideration of euthanasia as a good option, then the affected person will feel guilty for not choosing the procedure. The financial problems that arise due to providing medical care of the terminally ill person, then the patient will feel like a burden which will be a powerful force behind choosing the assisted suicide. Nonetheless, if euthanasia is available, the ill person may put pressure on themselves into requests for euthanasia. Also, there could arise the pressure from the family members to a sick person to ask for the assisted suicide to end the financial crisis that stems from providing medical and other care. Legalized euthanasia will reach to a point where people would volunteer to be killed to stop feeling guilty of being a burden to family members.

Euthanasia devalues some people's lives. Legalizing voluntary euthanasia will be sending a message across the society that it is better for a sick or disabled person to be dead rather than to be alive. This message will result in the view that some individuals' lives are not worthy. The ill people and disabled would be at risk as they would feel that there is a downgrading of their value as human beings. Some societies regard people living with disabilities are inferior and a burden to the nation. The eugenics, however, propose that the people that are a burden to the community should be eliminated. Opponents of euthanasia declare that death is not the same as being born. Nobody is supposed to ask patients to be killed against their wish regardless of w...