Euthanasia The Right to Die

How can it be that medicine, ethics, law, and family can work so poorly together in meeting the needs of patients who are left in a persistent vegetative state or have a terminal illness? Euthanasia can be righteous when used properly and respectfully. When a patient is in insufferable pain or is a vegetative state and seeks a resting place, then euthanasia is not frowned upon. Many times euthanasia is the best way to go even though it is a depressing experience.

Euthanasia, the practice of ending someone’s life by a specific act or medical care, must be legalized in the United States for the following reasons: Patients* wishes regarding euthanasia should be respected and accepted, the economic benefit of legalizing euthanasia will have a positive impact in the country, and euthanasia is consistent with Christian’s beliefs.

“Death is a natural part of the cycle of life and people should be granted with peace comfort during their deaths” (Snyder 86).

This prominent phrase was said by an HIV/AIDs physician regarding euthanasia. And it is true. Every human has a starting point and ending point. So, why make a complexity of it? The decision is made by only one person, and that is the patient; a patient’s wishes regarding euthanasia should be respected and accepted. Patients not only suffer physically, they suffer spiritually, psychology, and existentially. (Snyder 104) More than ninety percent of people will go through their terminal illness while five to ten percent find it unbearable to live in so much pain and helplessness and they request euthanasia (Snyder 34).

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Just because a patient is given pain relievers to control symptoms, it does not mean that these medications can rid of all the pain or function at all.

Much of the suffering this patients go through comes from unkind treatment, insensitive care -givers, neglect form family and friends, and unpleasant surroundings (Rifkin 9). Patients who want to end their lives under Death and Dignity Act have physical symptoms but also report that tiredness, feeling out of control and lack of meaning are the most important reasons they find euthanasia an option to hasten their death (Snyder 105). By prolonging the lives of the terminal ill and patients in constant vegetative state, medicine, ethics, law and families are prolonging the cycle of despair and suffering. One significant side of this argument, patients with a terminal illness will be able to die in painlessly, tranquilly, and cheaply. They will have accepted the risks and will not go back on their decision (Newton). As for the patients in persistent vegetative state, what do people know of how they feel or what they want and need? People against euthanasia cannot know because the only thing keeping them alive is artificial lungs and feeding tubes.

They cannot function without assisted help. By legalizing euthanasia, the government will be granting terminal ill patients and patients in persistent vegetative the opportunity to relieve their pain and end the cycle of depression and suicidal thoughts. Also, every citizen in the United States has the right of life and death (Newton). Federal court judges said patients with a terminal illness had the right to advance their death by denying treatment (Snyder 44). Now, that is inhumane and torturous, some of these patients do not get approved and commit suicide. Many organizations supporting euthanasia are against this. Furthermore, the benefits of legalizing euthanasia might bring the government an economic growth. For patients using paid help, the wide majority of providers came from hospice programs or home care (Emmanuel). Most patients rely completely on family and friends, paid assistance supplemented care provide by family and friends, and paid assistance exclusively (Emmanuel). Unmarried patients are less likely than married patients to patients to receive assistance from family and friends (Emmanuel).

That is an unimaginable burden to the families; they spend thousands of dollars each year for the patient, either terminal ill or in vegetative state, whose life at one point will eventually end. More than thirty-thousand three- hundred ninety-seven is spent on Medicare in the last year of a patient’s life (Emmanuel). Twenty-seven to thirty percent of the Medicare budget is wasted on the five percent of Medicare patients who die each year (Emmanuel). By ending patients’ live earlier, physician assisted suicide would reduce the costs associated with family care (Emmanuel). Also, the Supreme Court noted: “If physician-assisted suicide were permitted, many might resort to it to spare families the substantial financial burden of end-of-life care cost” (Emmanuel).

To continue the argument, the United States spends expansive amount of high-technology health care for dying patients (Emmanuel) Finally, many Christians believe euthanasia is against the law of God and unethical. But how can a divine figure allow a human to go through so much suffering and pain? This is a new era. An era of modern technology and different customs; nowadays the public does not entirely base its opinions and standards on a book written thousands of years ago. For example, Technology can create advantages and disadvantages to (Rifkin 9) .

People are living longer and more comfortably because of the advances there has been in technology and medicine, e.g., organ transplantations and antidepressants (Rifkin 9. But technology also prolongs lives that are already gone. Law makers have been intimidated by religious objections and have hid from the problem (Snyder 73). “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” What if the rod is the physician’s lethal dose of medication (Rifkin 11) People need to free themselves from ethnic and religious bigotry (Rifkin 12). They are making their own beliefs into patients that wish to end their life voluntarily. We do not play god by terminating a natural process. We forestall death health, environment changes and medical treatment.