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Introduction
Euthanasia is a Greek word meaning “good death”. Euthanasia refers to the deliberate action that is taken with the intention of ending life due to a pressing suffering. The suffering may be for instance incurable diseases, injuries, or irreversible coma. Death is only euthanasia if there is intention of death occurring by whatever was done or not done.
As it concerns euthanasia, three different terms are necessary in bringing out the exact meaning of the word. The first word is action. This is what is done to cause death. The action must be from one’s wish and no force or conditions should be met for taking of life. The other term is suffering. This necessary condition is the key to the action. This leads to accepting the action of taking life to get relieved from the pain. The last term is intention. The death should be intended and not accidental. The intention should be positive as the good of the victim of the matter is concerned.
The means of the action taken to bring death should be made painless as possible and it should prove it as a merciful killing. In this argumentative essay, different forms of euthanasia shall be discussed in depth for the argument to be brought out. This has been legalized in some countries. However, it is not morally right to kill. One should be left to die as per our religious ethics and no one should be killed even when it is intentional. With different reasons, the issue shall be examined at to determine if it should be banned or not.
Discussion
Euthanasia is classified into three different categories depending on whether the individual facing death had given informed consent or not. These three categories are voluntary, non-voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary euthanasia is death done to a person with his/her consent. The person should be ready to be killed from his/her own wish and there should be no external forces compelling the victim to accept death.
Non-voluntary euthanasia is the one in which the person killed had not made the request of the action taken and he/she had not made any consent. This type of euthanasia is not accepted in all countries around the world. Involuntary euthanasia is the situation in which an individual is killed and the action taken was contrary to his/her wish. This kind of death exhibits ignorance as the victim’s wishes are given a deaf ear.
These three categories of euthanasia can be further divided into passive euthanasia and active euthanasia. Passive euthanasia is done by inhibiting some necessities to the individual, for instance food and antibiotics, which are necessary for continuity of life.
Active euthanasia involves use of lethal substances or use of force to cause death. Active euthanasia has been debated for long on whether it should be banned or not. Active euthanasia should be banned as all individuals have the rights to live. Each individual should be given a chance to determine his/her own fate. Every individual should enjoy the right to life.
Although sometimes it becomes difficult, to continue living with a person, for instance a person who has used massive wealth of a family in treatment and yet there are no improvements in the individual’s condition. No matter how the situation is, the right to life should remain. No one should have the authority or desire to take another persons life even incase of many expenses on the individual.
Many believe that in conditions like the latter, active euthanasia should be accepted but it should not. An individual should live with his/her pain and suffering and his/her destiny should not be affected by anything but he/she should remain alive until the last gasp of air on earth without any factor coming in. Many people try to show tenders of mercy to the victim but it would be better if they extend their mercy in giving aid to the victim for instance giving out money to cater for operations and other treatments.
Active euthanasia has recently resulted into many cases that become difficult to solve. For instance, in a situation where an individual was killed without all the parties desiring the action coming to the point of accepting the actions to be taken. In such a case, individuals who had not yet accepted the actions taken may go to court and accuse those who accepted the action. In other cases, an individual may be forced to die but the individual refuses to give out his/her will.
After the person’s death, the greatest possibilities are that the members alive will have many miss-understandings and quarrels. In some cases like the latter, the individuals inheriting property may even end up killing one another. To avoid all these situations, an individual should be left to live and die in peace and leave others peaceful. Active euthanasia should therefore be banned to avoid occurrence of the situations that result after the individual is dead.
Legalizing active euthanasia will place the whole society in a slippery slope that will lead to unacceptable actions and consequences. For instance, members of a family who are against one of them may find it worthy to kill the person. This may lead to the people doing much harm to the person they are against. They may do this secretly without the individual noticing and this will mostly end in active euthanasia where the individuals accept merciful death.
This is a clear example showing the negative impacts of legalizing active euthanasia. To avoid such pathetic actions from happening, active euthanasia should be banned. This will aid in promoting the right to life and all people will have equal chances of living with no threatening factors or action that may determine their destiny.
Illegalizing active euthanasia will therefore give each person assurance of determining their fate. This as seen may also act to promote peace, as individuals will have to negotiate peacefully over a matter since they have no chance bringing harm to any one of them so that active euthanasia may be the last option.
In the world, it is also very clear that not almost all the religions accept active euthanasia. The governments should not go contrary to the rules and regulations of majority of the religions. No individual who is in a religion that does not support active euthanasia should take part in the actions.
The god of every individual should be the only one to bring death to a person and no person should have the authority to accept dying no matter the situation he/she is in. In addition, physicians should not accept taking any action leading to death, as they would be held responsible for their actions.
In addition, a physician may kill a person and other issues against the action arise. Although many people do not accept people in severe suffering and term them as liabilities, no one should have the permission to take any action leading to the death of the individual. Active euthanasia should therefore be banned completely and no physician should be involved in taking any actions that may result to loss of life.
It would be very inhumane and cruel to kill someone because of suffering. No party should advocate for killing of another person and yet his/her own life is not affected. It becomes unfair to do to others what cannot be done to you. It becomes difficult to ignore the interests of the majority in killing an individual but no matter what they say, an individual’s right to life should not be violated.
Most countries allow active euthanasia in such conditions to promote the interests of the majority but it is not worthwhile since they will have rendered the right to life useless and will have violated it. It would be senseless to say that promoting the interests of the majority will mean no violation of rights and yet we know that the right to life is enjoyed individually and therefore the person’s right will have been violated. All the governments should therefore ban active euthanasia in whatever conditions.
Active euthanasia is not intended to be painful. However, with modern medicine there are only few cases where pain can be alleviated. The physicians carrying out the medication to bring death will therefore have caused another kind of death and not active euthanasia, which is supposed to be painless.
Instead of giving medication to cause death, the physicians should better their medications to save life and help the individual recover. Also, if a doctor is in a position to give painless medicine to cause death, then the same doctor should also be able to give medicines to stop the pain felt by an individual hence death will not take place. This kind of assisted death should be banned, as it will also give pharmacists enough time to research on life-saving medicine and not life-ending medicines.
When physicians are in training, the aim of the training is to help people recover life and not to help people lose life. A lengthy period is spent educating them on medications until they become qualified personnel to work in the field. If active euthanasia is legalized then it will render the medical profession a body performing wrong duties.
The duties they were taught to carry out should be the only ones done. Patients are brought to health centers so that they can receive treatment that should help them in recovering from a suffering.
The physicians should therefore play their role effectively. It becomes a great fault to take another person’s life, which was not part of their long training. Active euthanasia should therefore be banned, as it will also make the medical body worthy.
If a person accepts to be killed mercifully, many say it is morally upright. I however do not accept this because life is personal and no one should be involved in taking of another person’s life. Life is not communal neither is it group-oriented like land, where the owners can decide on what to do. The personality of life should be maintained and this can only happen by banning active euthanasia.
The person wishing to be killed should be morally counseled and be helped to change his/her life perspective from needing death to needing recovery. Active euthanasia should not be used as a means to end life of an individual.
Each individual should do what he/she would like done to him/her. One cannot be ready to kill another person and yet he/she cannot accept the same to be done to him or her. This becomes unfair and so the act should be banned to enhance fairness.
Conclusion
The right to life is a right to every one in this world. This right should not be violated in any way and people’s lives should be respected. To promote this, active euthanasia should be banned completely no matter the situation. Physicians should make their profession realistic by saving people’s lives. They should not be involved in any act of killing patients since their training does not consist or promote losing of life but saving of life.
Life is a gift from God and since we were made in the likeness of God, the when one kills he/she has killed God. Though they say that the interests of the majority should be put into consideration, the government would be contradicting itself in accepting the majority’s desire and yet they are the ones singing on right to life.
Death should not be on mercy grounds but by God’s own plan. Majority accepts the action to be taken on others and yet they themselves cannot accept it. This is unfair and therefore active euthanasia should be banned to promote fairness.
Bibliography
Cavan, Seamus and Dolan, Shean. Euthanasia: The debate over the right to die. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2000.
Cohen, Carl and Regan, Tom. The animal rights debate. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
Howell, James and Sale, Williams. Life choices: A Hastings Center introduction to bioethics. London: Georgetown University Press, 2000.
Keown, John. Euthanasia, ethics, and public policy: An argument against legalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Manning, Michael. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: Killing or caring? New York: Paulist Press, 1998.
McDougall, Gorman, Martha and Roberts, Carolyn. Euthanasia: a reference handbook Washington, DC: ABC-CLIO, 2008.
Mitchell, Stephen. Understanding assisted suicide: Nine issues to consider. United Kingdom: University of Michigan Press, 2007.
Moreland, James and Geisler, Norman. The life and death debate: moral issues of our time. Washington, DC: ABC-CLIO, 1990.
Otlowski, Margaret. Voluntary Euthanasia and the Common Law. London: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Schaler, Jeffrey. Szasz under fire: A psychiatric abolitionist faces his critics. Washington, DC: Open Court Publishing, 2004.
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