The people of the world today are constantly slammed with problems. There’s overpopulated countries, starving children, incurable diseases, and poverty. There ” re drunk drivers on the road, burglars in our homes, and teenagers on the streets. No matter how many positive aspects you can think of for our world, these problems and many more exist. You can try to block them out, or you can strive to make them better. My proposal is to end euthanasia and physician assisted suicides.
I believe that this treatment of life is wrong, and can be solved in other ways. Victims of depression, dementia, terminal illnesses, and personal reasons individuals find to die should not be relieved of their condition through injection. The option should not even be available. The world today is attempting to help suicidal people. There are thousands of hospitals and clinics across the world that employ doctors and psychiatrists that specialize in improving the quality of others lives to prevent suicide, and promote emotional stability. Now death is a reasonable and feasible option.
The entirety of the problem of euthanasia and physician assisted suicides is not so much that unhappy people are dying, but that no effort or attempt is made to make them better. In every case, the request for assisted suicide stemmed from depression, anguish, desperation, or fear of abandonment. In other words, terminally ill patients sought euthanasia or assisted suicide for the same reasons that healthy people do. In the same case of healthy people, their suffering could be palliated, and their longing for death quelled, by proper use of medicine, loving kindness, and what some have called the ministry of presence. The answer to anguish and desperation is not to coldly dispatch the anguished and desperate, but rather to enfold them within the bonds of a community that sees in them intrinsic, rather than merely utilitarian value (Assisted 5).
Brown 3 Take for example, Janet Adkins. Janet was 54 when Dr. Kevorkian assisted her suicide. At the time of her death, she was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, and was not terminally ill. Her own doctor said she had ten years of productive life ahead of her.
She never met or spoke with Kevorkian until two days before her death (Death 3).
Elaine Gold baum had financial problems and feared losing her house. Jonathan Gren z was said to be depressed and overwhelmed with grief following his mother’s death. Ali Khalili had told his doctor that “the quality of his life had been compromised by an anxiety state.” Kevorkian assisted them all to die (Death 4).
These people represent the extent of discrimination that exists in our society.
With appropriate treatment and services, many of them would be alive and well today. My proposal to end this treatment of terminating lives is to outlaw it, and not just in the United States, but everywhere. I believe people have the right to do as they please, but suicide is an action that should be prevented in every way possible, not assisted for success. As far as I am aware, all countries outlaw the sale and use of heroin. There is no right to sell heroin. There is no right to take heroin.
These are just a couple of things for which no legal right exists. To people who say that physician-assisted suicide is a ‘right’, as if that should be the end of all discussion and debate, I say there are many things that are not rights. Many of these are ones that would hurt the individual for whom you claim these ‘rights’. Yes, there are cases where society must protect people from themselves, whether from addiction to harmful drugs, compulsive gambling, or from a depression or other mental ailment that dictates that they destroy their own lives. Assisted suicides and euthanasia are two rights that people should not have, and I believe the right shouldn’t even be considered. If the idea of assisted suicides was abolished, and the chance to have it performed was taken away, I believe people would learn to make the best of what they Brown 4 poses s, rather than to end their own life.
Many people aren’t strong enough to end their own lives, yet with an IV, and a single button, it becomes an easy mistake. Rather then assisted suicides and euthanasia, individuals considering the idea should have available for them extensive treatment and programs to improve their feelings and end their depression. Individuals diagnosed with terminal illnesses should be required to immediately seek psychological help to prevent them from becoming depressed. Many people may not seek this treatment due to the cost, which may worsen their condition of depression. I believe some sort of insurance should be set up through hospitals to take care of the costs. With this, individuals diagnosed with terminal illnesses and depression won’t see assisted suicides to be of cheaper value than treatment to rid them of their ill feelings.
I believe that everyone should be given an equal chance at life, and disabled people are being given the option of suicide instead of improvement. Many doctors even conclude that lives of people with severe disabilities are not worth saving, solely because of their disabilities (Assisted 3).
Along with banning assisted suicides and euthanasia, a consequence should be made for those physicians who still have access to the drugs such as morphine and opioid’s (Assisted 7).
If the acts of suicide were banned, some physicians that believe strongly in the ideas may still continue to help people die.
Some may get caught, and some may not. I believe that if any physician was suspected of performing assisted suicides, or selling the drugs for euthanasia, they ” re medical license should immediately be revoked until an investigation was performed. After the investigation, if the physician was found guilty, they should be penalized in a harsh manner. If they are found innocent, they should be placed on some type of probation where they may not have any access to the drugs without approval. All measures should be made to prevent Brown 5 any type of assisted suicide or euthanasia, just as all measures should be made to help those who seek it. There are many problems and obstacles that will come with the banning of assisted suicides and euthanasia.
Everyone has a different view on this topic, and many are actually for it, but they are unaware of the unnecessary deaths this has caused. In the Netherlands, a country in which assisted suicide has been widely accepted and practiced for many years and the country often referred to as “the model” for the United States, a governmental report demonstrates that many people with non terminal disabilities have been killed, and thousands have been killed involuntarily (Assisted 2).
There will be many problems to face in this proposal, but it is easy to say that there are more problems with the ability and accessibility of assisted suicides then without them. The problems with banning assisted suicides and euthanasia is quite unpredictable.
Either way the end results are, the outcome will be more humane and respectable then death. It is unsure if hospitals and insurance companies could come up with a plan to help these people with no cost or burden to the individual’s family, but something must be done. You never know what will happen until you try. Either way, this will eventually be a positive effect. Many people may commit suicide on their own, and many may seek help, and turn the remainder of their lives around when they would have been dead. The option of assisted suicide is just too accessible and simple.
It can be scheduled and occur within days of contacting a physician, and life should not be thrown around in that sort of way. The conclusion to my proposal is simple. Life is a privilege. These days, couples are lucky to produce a child with no complications or disabilities.
Successful people such as Brown 6 physicians should not be so willing to end others lives with such compliance. Earning a prosperous living through causing death to others is not an honest living, and these people should be considered all but heroes. One day they may say a life, yet the next, they ” re discriminating and ending one because an individual asks nicely and their accounts allow them to do so. Medicine should be focusing on improving lives, rather then giving the option of ending them so easily.
The option of assisted suicides and euthanasia should be outlawed which will cause people to seek other ways around their discomforts. Death should not be the answer to unhappiness, and the acts of assisted suicides should be unavailable to everyone. If an individual’s will to die is so strong, nature will take its course and fate will choose the path. Brown 7 Works CitedChevlen, Eric. Assisted Suicides.
April 27, 2000 < web with Dignity Act. April 27, 2000 < web.