The Will to Die
A person who commits suicide takes his or her own life. In the United States, about 22,000 people commit suicide every year, while 100,000 more people try and fail. For those who do not succeed in ending their lives, high percentages are forced into mental institutions. Attempted suicide is against the law and, when prosecuted, most perpetrators are found to be in need of psychiatric help. However, a successful suicide is not a crime because the criminal is also the victim (“Medicine”). Any person should have the right end his or her life. Terminally ill patients should also have the right to be removed from life support, or request a more peaceful way to die through prescribed medications. This type of suicide is often referred to as assisted suicide.
The term, assisted suicide, has an immediate negative connotation because of the emotions attached to the word suicide. The more common term for assisted suicide is physician aid-in-dying. Physician aid-in-dying, or PAD, is a practice in which a doctor prescribes a terminally ill patient with a lethal dose of medication, upon the request of the patient, to intentionally end his or her own life. Assisted suicide is illegal in every state in America except for Oregon. This practice is only legal in one out of fifty states because it is such a controversial issue. Some of the arguments against physician aid-in-dying include the fears that assisted suicide could potentially lead to another Holocaust, decrease the likelihood of medical reforms aimed at maintaining quality of life, and takes away the sanctity of life (Braddock). While all of these are valid points, each argument can be reasonably and strongly refuted.
One argument against assisted suicide is often called a “slippery slope.” The fear is that if assisted suicide is legalized, doctors would have the power to create another holocaust. This argument is based on the belief that assisted suicide is a way to, “get rid of the weak.” In this case, the weak refers to terminally ill patients. If the country agrees to allow assisted suicide, some fear that it would turn into a method of ridding society of those people who simply get in the way. It could become acceptable to start killing the handicapped, the elderly, abnormal babies, and any other people whose care could be considered an inconvenience. If this were to happen, it would be like giving the United States an opportunity to create another holocaust. A holocaust is a mass murder of a specific group of individuals (Cauthen). The holocaust of 1948 was an attempt to rid the world of “inferior persons,” including the Jewish, the handicapped, and even the mentally ill (“The Holocaust”). Viewing assisted suicide as a means of simply removing terminally ill patients, instead of helping them carry out their wishes, could lead someone to believe that it could create a holocaust over time.
Another holocaust would be tragic, but this argument is not entirely practical. If assisted suicide were to be legalized, the patient would have to meet certain criteria in order to qualify for the procedure. First, the patient must be near death. Second, they must be in unbearable pain or discomfort. Finally, the patient must be mentally aware enough to make the request of physician aid-in-dying. These rules cancel out the possibility of murdering patients that do not desire to end their lives. Jack Kevorkian, a known advocate for the right to die states, “It is next to impossible to force someone to take their own life. If we are simply killing off people who do not want it or ask for it, we would be murdering them… granting someone their last wish isn’t murder, its mercy” (Stanley).
The care devoted to members of society leads to many disagreements concerning the legalization of assisted suicide. A legal means of assisted suicide could have serious repercussions on health care and its associated costs. For example, a health care reform that provides for pain management would be less likely to be adopted if assisted suicide was a viable option. “Without those reforms, patients end up with no prospects to live well while dying.” Allowing physician aid-in-dying would make reforms like this less probable because ill patients, the elderly, or other vulnerable minorities may see this as their only option. They may choose suicide due to pressure from the medical or insurance community. Committing suicide would be seen as a more practical and fiscally responsible solution to a person in severe pain, rather than bothering their family to provide the money for pain medications. In this situation, offering an ill patient suicide does not seem like a genuine choice (Lynn).
In reality, health care costs could decrease with the legalization of assisted suicide. The cost of keeping a dying patient alive for several months could cost anywhere from $50,000.00 to $100,000.00. For a patient who is willing to end his or her suffering, assisted suicide is financially more practical. The money that would have been used to keep them alive could then be spent on patients whose lives can be prolonged with quality. With lower health care costs, the options for terminally ill patients would actually broaden. Assisted suicide should be an option, not a requirement. Those who prefer to live out the remainder of their lives and die naturally should still be taken care of to the best of our ability. Medical concerns dealing with end of life care should not become obsolete and should, in fact, continue to advance (Messerli). Instead of competing, better medications and assisted suicide can each make the end of a patient’s life as peaceful as possible.
Many religious would argue that assisted suicide takes away the sanctity of life. This refers to the belief that life is a blessing, and that ending one’s life prematurely would be like “spitting in the face of our creator.” Religious believers pontificate that doctors participating in assisted suicide are playing God by determining when a patient ends his or her life. Ending a life by any means is against religious teachings and sentences both the doctor and the patient to eternal condemnation. Also, assisted suicide flows against the natural order of life and death by artificially shortening the time between the two. If death is part of a grand plan put in place by a supreme being, a person’s afterlife will be deleteriously affected by suicide because he did not stay alive to complete his assigned mission on Earth (Muehlenberg).
Life is truly a blessing, but after a certain point, we are not living, we are dying. A peaceful death can also be a blessing. Assisting in ending one’s agony is not toying with destiny, especially since a terminally ill patient is, sadly, already on the path to certain death and often in unbearable pain. To argue that doctors are playing God is somewhat true; however, that same argument would also prevent giving a woman who could not conceive without modern medicine, a chance to be a mother through in vitro fertilization. In fact, the very patient who wishes to die may have previously benefited from medical intervention and had his natural life extended by several years. In this way, all patients look to their doctors to help them, but unfortunately not all patients can be helped in recovery (Salem). For a terminally ill patient, their doctor is still their savior; it is just that the patient is being saved from a tortuous death.
Legalizing assisted suicide will not lead to another holocaust. Doctors and their patients will have to abide by laws in order to stop any one person from gaining too much power and possibly taking things too far. It will not cause a decrease in health care reforms. The cost of pain medication could potentially decrease due to a decrease in finances needed to keep terminally ill patients alive. The legalization of assisted suicide will not be taking away the sanctity of life. A person should have the right to decide how they want to end their life. Allowing a supreme being to determine the time and manner of death would mean the removal of all medical intervention throughout life. In America, a citizen has the freedom to become anything they want in life; they should also have the freedom to choose how to end their life. Most would want their family and friends to remember their accomplishments made throughout their life, not picture them lying dependant in a hospital bed.
Assisted suicide is an outlet for a terminally ill patient to die with dignity. For those who have never faced death to argue that suicide is not the right way to die is presumptuous. Until they too are in that position, they will never understand the pain and agony a terminally ill patient is experiencing. Many people faced with death want their families to remember them at their best, and not prolong their worst time in life. Piergiorgio Welby, a sixty year old man who has been suffering from muscular dystrophy for forty years says,
“Life is the woman who loves you, the wind through your hair, the sun on your face, an evening stroll with a friend… Life is also a woman who leaves you, a rainy day, a friend who deceives you. I am neither melancholic nor manic-depressive. I find the idea of dying horrible. But what is left to me is no longer a life” (Fisher).
Works Cited
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Cauthen, Kenneth. "Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia." Frontier Net. 1998. Web. 19 Nov. 2010. <http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/asuici.htm>.
Fisher, Ian. "A Poet Crusades for the Right to Die His Way." Rome. New York Times, 20 Dec. 2006. Web. 19 Nov. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/world/europe/20welby.html>.
"The Holocaust." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 1 Apr. 2010. Web. 19 Nov. 2010. <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143>.
Lynn, Joanne, and Joan K. Harrold. Handbook for Mortals: Guidance for People Facing Serious Illness. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.
"Medicine: The Will to Die - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. Web. 19 Nov. 2010. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,798963,00.html>.
Messerli, Joe. "BalancedPolitics.org - Physician Assisted Suicide (Pros & Cons, Arguments For and Against)." BalancedPolitics.org - Free Balanced, Non-Partisan Discussion of Political & Social Issues for Debate (Pros and Cons - Decision Making Politics). 3 Apr. 2007. Web. 19 Nov. 2010. <http://www.balancedpolitics.org/assisted_suicide.htm>.
Salem, Badar. "Assisted Suicide: A Choice or a Crime: The Ethics of Assisted Suicide Continue To Be Debated." Suite101.com: Online Magazine and Writers' Network. 11 Feb. 2010. Web. 19 Nov. 2010. <http://www.suite101.com/content/assisted-suicide-a-choice-or-a-crime-a200665>.
Muehlenberg, By Bill. "Life's Worth: The Case against Assisted Suicide, by Arthur Dyck." AD2000 - a Journal of Religious Opinion. 2002. Web. 19 Nov. 2010. <http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2003/mar2003p17_1281.html>.
Stanley, Allessandra. "Jack Kevorkian." Times Topics. New York Times, 29 Apr. 2010. Web. 19 Nov. 2010. <http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/k/jack_kevorkian/index.html>.
