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Assisted suicide ending suffering
People with terminal illness should have the right to medically assisted suicide
Should terminally ill people have the right to die
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Assisted Suicide - A Better Way to Go
Doctor Kevorkian and other so-called "death doctors" should be permitted
to assist in the premature deaths of the terminally ill. Although many states
outlaw assisted suicides, nevertheless, they should by made legal for terminally
ill patients. These patients may not want to suffer a long, painful death. The
terminally ill will not get well, they might decide to make the decision of
ending their life alone if they cannot receive proper help, and assisted
suicides may one day be useful in discovering how the human brain works or
perhaps find a cure to some fatal diseases.
First, the terminally ill patients will not get better or become cured
of the disease they have. According to many medical physicians the expression
"terminally ill" means being in the final stages of a disease that is incurable
(Hentoff, p.10). If a person has a despairing disease such as AIDS, that person
may not want to live the rest of their short life with all the pain and
frustration. ...
Civil disobedience is the purposeful violation of a law to show that it is unconstitutional or morally defective. In the plays, Antigone and Trifles, the female main characters commit an act of civil disobedience. The plays are respectively written by Sophocles and Susan Glaspell. Antigone, the main character of Antigone, protects her dead brother's honor as she disobeys the laws of King Creon. Mrs. Hale, the main character of Trifles prevents a neighbor from being charged with homicide as she breaks the law in front of two lawmen-The Sheriff and the County Attorney. Both characters' crimes are similar; however, their differences lie in how they handle their violations. Antigone boldly and proudly breaks the law, does not care if she is caught, and loudly admits to the crime in front of her fellow Theban citizens. On the other hand, Mrs. Hale performs her crime artfully and quietly, does not want to be caught, and has no intentions of exposing her crime. Both characters accomplish their tasks, but Mrs. Hale's actions are carried out more effectively. She saves her neighbor and herself from imprisonment.
If a situation came about where I was terminally ill and the doctors told me that I had just six months to live, I wouldn 't opt to end my life. This is probably because I’m young and I could desperately use those six months to see and do as much as I’d miss for the rest of my life. I’d ask that the doctor give me some medication for pain mediation, and then I’d scrape together whatever energy I had and I’d go travel and live what was left of my life. Even if I didn 't want to travel or I was bedridden, I’d still opt to live the time that I had left for the reasons that it would allow people who are close to me to spend time
At one time or another, the beautiful fairy tale Cinderella has been in nearly every child’s life at one time. Anne Sexton manages to put a twist in her version of Cinderella, born in 1928-1970. Sexton was well-known as an Outstanding Contemporary poet with a vivid style of writing in her literature. The irony way of word choices was used in this poem not holding back on the sarcasm, harshness, to dramatize the events in the story. The Cinderella fairy tale becomes a makeover of a beautiful poem to a dark, amusing version of the original poem. “I think poetry should be a shock to the senses, it should almost hurt” (Sexton, p. 250).
She is a pious, autonomous individual who likes to take matters into her own hands. When it comes to her plan to give her brother a proper burial, “Creon is not enough to stand in [her] way,” and she is “not afraid of the danger; if it means death, it will not be the worst of deaths – death without honor,” (Antigone 15, 80-81). To Antigone, family and honor are of highest priority, and she will not let anything or anyone prevent her from carrying out her duties. From the beginning of the play until her death, she holds onto these principles. Even the way in which she dies is reflective of this self-ruling ideal; she killed herself before anyone else could, not allowing anyone other than herself to have control over her fate. And because of these principles, her misfortunes were self-inflicted. She knew what misfortunes awaited her if she were to go through with her plan; she knew “the penalty [for burying Polyneices] – stoning to death in the public square,” (Antigone 23-24). She was fully aware that she would get killed for carrying out this act, but she did not allow those consequences to stop her from doing what she believed was honorable. Because Antigone’s misfortunes occurred with her full conscious knowledge and acceptance of her consequences, she is not considered a tragic
We unanimously have agreed upon that the scene where Antigone is taken to see Creon about breaking the law for giving proper burial rites to her brother, Polynices, as the most emotional piece in the play. The element of tension permeates the atmosphere as soon as Antigone is brought in under guard and does not abate until the end for the verdict, leaving the reader feeling spent. Antigone is far from the only person who has courageously placed morals over state laws. There are a lot of modern examples of people who have chosen to fight for justice rather than preserve their own safety. Consider Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Gandhi, both advocates of civil disobedience and peaceful demonstrations, who were assassinated as a result of their
Having already been through public disgrace, when her own father, Oedipus found out that he was to fulfill a prophecy; he would kill his father and marry his mother, and this caused Antigone to be full of resentment toward her city. Both of her brothers die in a battle and, Creon, the king of Thebes forbids the burial of one of her brothers, Polynices. This must have driven Antigone to follow her moral law. Considering the love she had for her family as well as her God, she felt that you react upon morals not upon the laws of man. That morale law was to honor her brother and give him the respectful and proper burial that he deserved just as her other brother was given. The love she had for her family was the only thing she had left to honor. Ismene, Antigone’s sister was more fearful of the king’s law then the way her heart was leading her. Her values were slightly distorted.
In the book, Antigone, written by Sophocles, Antigone, the protagonist, faces a decision that questions her loyalty to her family and King Creon. When she learns that both of her brothers have died in battle, but only Eteocles had received the proper burial, Antigone makes it a mission to give her dead sibling, Polyneices, a proper farewell. Due to Creon’s decree, the citizens of Thebes were forbidden to bury him. Antigone’s confident, honorable, and upstanding yet secretive personality clashes (or come in conflict) with Creon’s rule and edict, that later results in the deaths of multiple protagonists.
In her paper entitled "Euthanasia," Phillipa Foot notes that euthanasia should be thought of as "inducing or otherwise opting for death for the sake of the one who is to die" (MI, 8). In Moral Matters, Jan Narveson argues, successfully I think, that given moral grounds for suicide, voluntary euthanasia is morally acceptable (at least, in principle). Daniel Callahan, on the other hand, in his "When Self-Determination Runs Amok," counters that the traditional pro-(active) euthanasia arguments concerning self-determination, the distinction between killing and allowing to die, and the skepticism about harmful consequences for society, are flawed. I do not think Callahan's reasoning establishes that euthanasia is indeed morally wrong and legally impossible, and I will attempt to show that.
In the story of Antigone she is faced with the struggle between law and family allegiance. Her civil disobedience is not like any of the struggles that we face today, as an example, those who protested
The origin of the Sophocles’ Greek tragedy “Antigone” has created much controversy about the definition of a tragic hero, as defined by Aristotle. A literary character that makes a judgment error that leads to his/her own downfall. Both Creon and Antigone challenge each other’s conception of the divine and civic law while each has lawfulness in their argument. It is evidently noted that Antigone is the hero of the tragedy; she was a romantic idealist whose beliefs on family loyalty and religious values could not be condemned by civil laws.
Anne Sexton’s poem “Cinderella” is filled with literary elements that emphasize her overall purpose and meaning behind this satirical poem. Through the combination of enjambment stanzas, hyperboles, satire, and the overall mocking tone of the poem, Sexton brings to light the impractical nature of the story “Cinderella”. Not only does the author mock every aspect of this fairy tale, Sexton addresses the reader and adds dark, cynical elements throughout. Sexton’s manipulation of the well-known fairy tale “Cinderella” reminds readers that happily ever after’s are meant for storybooks and not real life.
It starts with a fairy tale story, where all magical things happen and ends happily. The goodness is rewarded but the evil ones are punish. The closing of the story always ends with “and they live happily ever after,” and the main character becomes unhappy but eventually gains happiness at the end. The traditional Cinderella story figure is from “rags to riches.” It begins with a poor maid girl named Cinderella whose stepmother and stepsisters treated her unkindly, but because of the help of her fairy godmother, Cinderella found her Prince Charming. In Anne Sexton’s Cinderella story, the author made changes to the traditional fairy tale by adding her own tale. Throughout the poem, Sexton uses sarcasm to finish the tale initiating the readers’ expectation of happy ending and a traditional fairy tale to vanish. In doing so, she shows the difference between the fairy tale and reality world. Sexton’s poem mocks the traditional happy ending. She is trying to show the reader that happily-ever-after does not even exist in reality. Overall, Sexton’s poem would be considered a dark classic fairy tale including violence and bloody details. By examining literary devices such as the author’s attitude toward the words she says, sensory details denoting specific physical experiences, and tropes to involve some kind of comparison, either explicit or implied, the reader will gain an understanding on what the author is trying to prove a point in her story.
Fairy tales have been known to identify different aspects of life such as modern issues and concerns without having to directly point them out. In Anne Sexton’s poem, her version of “Cinderella”, modern issues and concerns are discussed through the lens of the fairytale. She touches on aspects of marriage such as wealth and possessiveness of money by discussing how most of the women in fairytales want to marry into wealthy families. Sexton also discusses how fitting into society’s complex standards is another modern issue by showing that in order for Cinderella to go out in public, she feels as if she needs to dress according to the way society dresses. Furthermore, many women in society today admire models and actresses because they
Later in the conversation the reader learns that Antigone has a plan to bury here brother Polynices and that she wants Ismene to help her. Ismene is scared to do this because the new king, Creon, has issued a decree that says that any person that attempts to bury the body will be sentenced to death. The fact that Antigone is going to attempt to bury the body creates fear in the reader. They are fearful as to what will happen to
In the play Antigone there can be seen a struggle between two forces: god’s law verses man’s law. A woman, Antigone, who strongly believed in the god’s law, opposed a king, Creon, who believed in the man’s law. Antigone disobeyed Creon’s law, about burying Polyneices, simply because she felt it to be her duty to the gods. Although both Creon and Antigone suffer greatly in the play, I believe that Creon is the tragic hero.