Euthanasia- Is it right or wrong? Euthanasia, it is a grim part of medical practice that is rarely talked upon. The right to end lives before their time. Should humans be given the right to play god? Maybe in the future daughters and sons may have the power over ending their suffering parent’s lives. We are allowed to decide when our beloved pets are to be put to sleep when they are suffering, so why are people not able to choose when they want to be put to sleep to end their long suffering? I am here in front of you today to explain this ideal.
Is Euthanasia right or wrong in our society today? The points for Euthanasia becoming legal in society today are that some people want Euthanasia to become legalised while others don’t want it to. In my opinion it should be legalised as it enables people the option with terminal illnesses to end their lives, ending their long suffering throughout the illnesses. Another thing is that pets that are suffering are able to be put to sleep to end their suffering and to end the pain whereas people with illness related pain are not.
This showing that we would rather people have huge amounts of pain while they are alive instead of being put to sleep and reducing it to zero, and that we think more highly of animal rights than that of humans in the same situation. If Euthanasia was to become legal it would mean that the person that was suffering would be rid of their pain but it would cause a new type of pain in the people that they would be leaving behind. By this I mean that the person would be prematurely ending their life, leaving many people that dearly loved them behind in the world in mourning.
Thus meaning that Euthanasia would be a win lose situation. Other reasons people don’t want Euthanasia to become legal is that they think that humans have no right to having such a strong power of deciding when people die. An example of this is the Christian Church where they believe that humans were created in the image of god and that Euthanasia interferes with the natural process of death. They also think that playing the job of god is not job for any human being to decide when a human being must end their life.
Euthanasia on the other hand is an issue of personal freedom where the person that is ill has the rights to decide when they are to die. This meaning that nobody should be able to tell them when they should give up their illness and be put to sleep. The points against Euthanasia in society today becoming legal are that Euthanasia would not only be used for people that were terminally ill but that people would misuse it for the wrong purposes. For example a person that hated their life and wanted an escape route would be able to access to the treatment instead of them persisting with their lives by going through counselling etc.
Another is that the treatment would be used as a means of healthcare cost containment where if euthanasia did become legal it would mean that doctors would be better off financially if the terminal ill person went through with the treatment instead of the doctor having to provide long-term care to the person over the long run. It would also mean that governments have the possibility to save costs as it would mean that the terminally ill people would be able to take the relatively cheap treatment of death instead of the government having to provide very costly and expensive long-term treatments for the person until they did die naturally.
For example, immediately after the passage of Measure 16, Oregon’s law permitting assisted suicide, Jean Thorne, the state’s Medicaid Director, announced that physician-assisted suicide would be paid for as “comfort care” under the Oregon Health Plan which provides medical coverage for about 345,000 poor Oregonians. Within eighteen months of Measure 16’s passage, the State of Oregon announced plans to cut back on health care coverage for poor state residents. In Canada, hospital stays are being shortened while, at the same time, funds have not been made available for home care for the sick and elderly.
Registered nurses are being replaced with less expensive practical nurses. Patients are forced to endure long waits for many types of needed surgery. That Euthanasia would only be voluntary, but many Emotional and psychological pressures could become overpowering for depressed or dependent people. If the choice of euthanasia is considered as good as a decision to receive care, many people will feel guilty for not choosing death. Financial considerations, added to the concern about “being a burden,” could serve as powerful forces that would lead a person to “choose” euthanasia.
