Opinion piece on euthanasia

My take on the issue?

I think that advocating for euthanasia is a difficult task because it can be seen as supporting suicide. Under no circumstances do I think that suicide is an alternative to solving problems. I honestly believe that with the right help everyone can get through a tough time. Euthanasia is very different—it involves terminally ill people that have no chance of recovery and who live in intolerable pain. The conditions under which I think euthanasia can be employed are described below. These are the only circumstances in which I would advocate euthanasia. I believe euthanasia to be the right of choice, rather than the right of death.

When should euthanasia be practised?

Advocates of voluntary euthanasia believe that a person should have the legal right to be assisted in ending their life if that person meets all the following criteria:

1. he or she is suffering from a terminal illness
2. he or she is unlikely to benefit from the discovery of a cure within their lifetime
3. as a direct result of the illness, he or she is suffering from intolerable pain or is continuously attached to life support
4. he or she has expressed a voluntary and competent wish to die, given that conditions 1–3 are met. Competent, in legal terms, means being “mentally stable” and able to make your own decisions.

My reasons for supporting the right of choice

• It is unfair to make people live in unbearable pain with no chance of ever getting better. I define intolerable pain as when a person is unable to complete the simplest daily tasks without being in excruciating pain—in spite of having done everything they can to get rid of the pain. Intolerable pain also refers to a person that finds no pleasure in any sort of activity due to their illness; or they are completely bed-ridden and on life support. In these cases, death can be their only form of release. This is when I believe that a person should have the choice of ending their life, with assistance if necessary.

• I believe that every person should have control over their own life.Those people whose quality of life is nonexistent should have the right to end it and seek assistance to do so. It is difficult to judge when someone’s life is nonexistent. I believe that if all the criteria described above are met then a person should be free to do what they think is best.

• The law denying people euthanasia discriminates against the sick. If a person is capable of making a decision (and that should be left to the courts to decide) but is physically unable to end their own life then they should be helped. It is the law that decides if a person is mentally fit to make their own decisions. However, it is also the law that says that same person’s decision to die is not valid even though he or she is mentally fit to make a choice. Should the sick be allowed the same rights as healthy people? Why does the government discriminate against their choice to terminate their life?

• Someone should not be forced to stay alive when they don’t want to because they don’t have the energy or resources to take their own life. Forcing a terminally ill person living in intolerable pain to continue living can be seen by the sick person as torture. The fact the government denies the person the freedom of choice and imposes its own values and beliefs on the individual is wrong. People should not have to live in a state of extreme suffering.

How do I know this?

Euthanasia.com, http://www.euthanasia.com/index.html

Religious Tolerance.com, Euthanasia and physician assisted suicide (PAS), http://www.religioustolerance.org/euthanas.htm

Young R, ‘Five Objections to the Moral Permissibility of Voluntary Euthanasia’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/euthanasia-volun...