FREE ESSAY ON RIGHT TO DECIDE: TO LIVE OR TO DIE

RIGHT TO DECIDE: TO LIVE OR TO DIE

Who has the right to say whether a person lives or dies? The person has the right to
decide. You are in control of your body and hold your life in your hands, right or wrong
you have the option to end your life, and in extreme cases your family has the right to
act on your behalf. There is no one who should be able to take this option away from you.
Everyone has certain inalienable rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution, and if a
person has a right to life then they have a right to death. In 1997, in its decisions in
the Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill cases, the U.S. Supreme Court again
affirmed the right of competent patients to refuse unwanted medical treatments and to
receive adequate pain treatment at the end of life - even if it might hasten
death(www.choices.org). 
The definition of euthanasia is, according to Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary, a
painless peaceful death or the putting to death of a person suffering from a fatal
disease or the like: also called mercy killing. Euthanasia can be both passive and
active. Passive euthanasia is more accepted by society because it is seen more as letting
nature take its course rather than killing a person. In passive euthanasia what most
commonly happens is a person is taken off life support and allowed to die. It seems so
much neater and easy to understand than active euthanasia. The vision of mad doctors with
fuzzy white hair sticking out in all directions and laughing as they inject you some
fatal drug is scary and a total misconception. After all, this isn't a B-movie. The truth
of the matter is that a doctor that the person knows and trusts could give the injection.
If it was legalized a person wouldn't need to search out someone like Dr. Jack Kevorkian
and his self-execution machine to end their lives. They could have it done and feel
confident in the doctor's ability. Death is a certainty in life. Why should those who are
in great pain and/or are terminal have to wait to die? Why should a patient be forced to
live if they think their present standard of life has degenerated to the point of
meaningless? A good death...is under the dying person's control and gives that person
time to settle debts and fulfill obligations. Achieving closure is important. The term
refers to settling differences, healing wounds, and closing gaps in human relationships.
Closure is difficult or impossible when the timing of death is uncertain or when the
patient is too physically frail or mentally impaired. To most people, a death without
closure is a bad death. (Logue/euthanasia.org)
Death is a scary subject. A subject that many people don't want to discuss especially
when a family member is on the verge. What many people do not realize is that those who
are so ill that they can no longer take care of themselves or enjoy the simple things
have made peace with the reality of death and are ready to face it. When they are ready
to die, they are ready. If the family is not prepared, they cannot ask the ill member to
hold on for them. Death is very personal and no one has the right to choose when that
person's time is but that person.
A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it
is wrong, as well as useless to resist.
-Steward Alsop, Stay of Execution 
So what about those people who cannot speak for themselves? Those people who are
vegetables or just unaware of what is going on, being in no mental state to know how to
answer this question. There is a point where it no longer becomes feasible to keep
someone on life support. The financial, emotional, and physical burden on the members of
the family is overwhelming and it cannot be expected of them to keep up that sort of care
when there is no hope for recovery. It is not fair to give the family a false hope that
the suffering party could recover when the truth is that it will probably not happen. It
is true that doctors have been wrong about such things, but it is such a small percentage
that it does not make sense to try with everyone. Of course, if the family wants to keep
that person alive no one will stop them. However, if the family should choose to end that
person's life in, what they believe is, the best interest of the ill person, then they
should have that option. An action that radical, though, would have to be cleared by
several medical opinions and with a family counselor who would explain to the family what
it would mean to take the person off live support. 
An argument that people have used against euthanasia is that in the Constitution, it
guarantees the right to life but not the right to death. However, death is just another
phase of life. We are born, we live, and then we die. It is an unavoidable part of being
alive: the knowledge that someday everyone will die. Another part of the Constitution
they argue is that attempted suicide is a crime so how can euthanasia be legal. The
answer is that the people who are euthanized are terminally ill or in such discomfort
that their quality of life has gone down to a degree not worth living. It is also
monitored to be sure that the patients are actually in a state in which euthanasia would
be beneficial. People who commit suicide are merely depressed and think their life cannot
get any better. Those who are terminally ill know that their life will not get any
better. Also, who is to say that a law against suicide is right? That is the great thing
about the Constitution: it can change as the times change. 
Another argument is that not all that can be done should be done to preserve a life. The
advances of technology have disturbed the natural balance of life and death. No longer
does a person die when they naturally would; life-support now prevents that. Opponents
say doctors should not play God by killing patients, but do they realize that by
prolonging the process of death the medical profession is doing exactly that? They are
keeping the patient alive when God would have them dead. That statement sounds harsh, but
isn't it the truth? Doctors are not always responsible to do everything they can to save
somebody. If a doctor's duty is to ease the pain of his patients, then why should this
exclude the possibility of letting them die? It is a mistake to see doctors either as
curers (for sometimes they cannot cure us) or as killers (for most of the time they will
not kill us). Rather we should see them as carers. And proper caring can call in special
circumstances for killing. (Crisp/euthanasia.org) A poll done in the United States showed
that forty-seven percent of doctors had received requests from patients to hasten their
deaths. Nineteen percent of these doctors took active steps that brought about the death
of a patient. Also, sixty-eight percent thought that guidelines for withholding or
withdrawing treatment should be established and forty-five percent were in favor of
legislation of active euthanasia under certain circumstances (www.euthanasia.org).
As someone who has experienced first hand how devastating it can be to have someone in
their family who is in such pain that they can barely move, and want more than anything
else to die now rather than in a year, I can say that allowing someone to choose whether
they live or die is a right that all people in that kind of position should be given. It
is hard for the family to let go, but at the same time one must respect the wishes of the
individual and understand that this is what is best for them. Had she gone into a coma
and I had to choose for her, I would have chosen to remove life support. As much as I
would not want to, it is what she would have wanted.
No matter how much the world changes, or how technologically advanced we get there will
always be people dying. It is the one of the things that technology cannot stop from
happening. Death, however, should be a dignified and personal experience that comes to an
individual in a debilitating state through his or her own wishes. 
Bibliography
Choice in Dying (2000) [WWW document]. URL http://www.choices.org
Docker, Chris ed. (May 1998). Research Literature: Death and Dying. 
[WWW document]. URL http://www.euthanasia.org/
Euthanasia. Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1993.