Introduction
Euthanasia is the act of purposely ending an individual’s life to help him or she get rid of pain and suffering. For instance, a medical worker who gives a patient with incurable cancer an excessive dose of relaxants to terminate their life would be well-thought-out to have performed euthanasia. Assisted suicide is the situation when the doctor (or any other person) is intentionally helping or reassuring another individual to end their life.
If a relative or a close one of an individual with an incurable disease were to attain powerful tranquilizers, realizing that the person planned to take an enormous dose of sedatives to execute themselves, they might be thought to be supporting suicide. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are considered illegal, and wrongdoers are considered criminals and punished by law. Contingent on the conditions, euthanasia is viewed as either homicide or manslaughter and is punishable by governmental regulations. The supreme punishment might even consider life imprisonment. Nonetheless, trying to execute yourself is not an unlawful action in itself.
Position Statement
I believe that any given individual with a terminal illness should be allowed to ask for euthanasia and his or her request should be granted under any circumstances.
Supporting Reason
It is known that currently euthanasia and assisted suicide are considered to be criminal acts. Nonetheless, every individual has the right to die. This means that the person who suffers from unendurable pain should be allowed to ask for euthanasia (Strinic, 2015). The categorical ban of the latter explicitly interferes with the individual’s liberty and should be dismissed. All the patients with a terminal illness who are on the verge of demise should not be required to suffer. It should be viewed as much of wrongdoing to make an individual live who reasonably does not want to endure as it is to execute an individual without permission (Strinic, 2015).
Moreover, we should consider the Hippocratic Oath to be one of the supporting reasons, too. Its extensively-quoted statement that a doctor should not harm the patient should be carefully reviewed. For a patient with a terminal illness, prolonging life might be a painful burden. In this case, the Hippocratic Oath should be seen as a support act when it comes to euthanasia (Strinic, 2015). Assisting death on no account excludes giving the finest comforting care possible but rather assimilates empathetic care and deference for the patient’s self-sufficiency and finally makes a fair death with self-respect a real opportunity.
Opposing Reason
It must be understood that assisted suicide and euthanasia will be provided with an eye on social disparity and preconception that exemplifies the provision of services in all layers of society, together with healthcare (Boudreau & Somerville, 2014). The least cultured and least empowered will be most susceptible to exploitation, mistakes, and indifference. This jeopardy does not mirror a verdict that doctors are more biased or influenced by social class or race than the rest of society.
While we want to eliminate discernment and the most grueling impacts of poverty on jobs, education, and law, we steadily fail in reaching our goals. The price of the fiasco associated with assisted suicide and euthanasia would be intolerable (Pereira, 2011). There is no reason to accept as true that the practices, whatever safety measures are utilized, will be not impacted by the wide-ranging social and medicinal setting in which they will be functioning. This statement is naive and unjustifiable.
References
Boudreau, J., & Somerville, M. (2014). Euthanasia and assisted suicide: A physician’s and ethicist’s perspectives. MB Medicolegal and Bioethics, 1-12. Web.
Pereira, J. (2011). Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide: The illusion of safeguards and controls. Current Oncology, 18(2), 38-45. Web.
Strinic, V. (2015). Arguments in support and against euthanasia. British Journal of Medicine and Medical Research, 9(7), 1-12. Web.