Free Euthanasia Essay

It’s been years now since the hospital said that your dad had a terminal disease. The health administration hasn’t found a cure for it and probably won’t for years to come. You hate to see your dad like this. All he can do is lay in bed, useless to the world he once helped, and wait to die. This story is sadly what some people face today. There are people who get terminal illnesses but never get cured of them and never die of them. These people almost always live painful lives doing nothing, just waiting to die. Assisted suicide is a perfect solution to some people’s problems. The opposing view is that people have no right to end anyone’s life at any point in time throughout life. According to Jonathan Gould and Lord Craigmyle, “…euthanasia means the painless killing of men and women to end their sufferings”(15). Why do so many people condone euthanasia when it is almost every mans dream? If you consider the facts, everybody would like a painless death. I don’t know many people that would like a long and painful death. People would like to die easily or in their sleep. People expect their doctor to relieve them of pain when they are sick. Infact, humans even feel that their animals should be put to death if they are suffering. This is clearly stated by Janelle Rohr when she said, “A dying animal is quickly ‘put out of its misery,’ but no such consideration is offered to the terminally ill human”(136). “Among certain primitive people, the killing or abandonment of aged or helpless members was an accepted practice”(Jonathan Gould and Craigmyle 20). In America we perform abortions, execute murderers and draft young men so they may be slain for their country. But mention the subject of euthanasia and people start to get a little crazy. Having worked in a variety of medical settings, I have seen countless people suffer hideous deaths from illnesses like cancer, AIDS, cirrhosis and end-stage pulmonary disease. A dying animal is quickly “put out of its misery,” but no such consideration is offered to the terminally ill human. Where there is life there may be hope. But where there is life there is also inevitable death. Doctors often act as if death were just another health problem that could be cured with enough effort. Perhaps it is time our society and its grandiose medical profession relieved themselves of the myth of immortality (Rohr 136).