Is Euthanasia of Humans Ethical in the Case of the Terminally Ill and the Elderly - Essay Example

Euthanasia Issue While talking about euthanasia we discuss the legislated killing of human being. That is why it comes to be a rather controversial issue, as it is difficult to find a compromise on who has the right to forbid a man to take the fateful decision about his own life. Especially it comes to be crucial in those cases when medical evidences are inseparably bounded with the life quality like terminal illness or problems with control over one’s own body engaged with a person’s elderly. The word "euthanasia" was firstly used in the XVII century by Francis Bacon to define pleasant death. He built it from two Greek roots: "eu" - "good" and "thanatos" – "death." Nowadays the concept of euthanasia is understood as medical care about a patient who suffers from an incurable painful disease, which implies fast and painless termination of life. There are different kinds of euthanasia which ethical legibility is being widely discussed in scientific circles. A passive euthanasia means cessation of maintenance therapy and it includes disconnection from the life-support systems; active euthanasia is the injection of drugs that cause death, as well as transfer of such drugs to the patient for self-usage (Rachels, 79). When a patient is being in the situation when he wants to stop his existence because of severe suffering or huge physical disability he may request for euthanasia. But the problem is that often such requests will not lead the patient anywhere because physicians have no legal rights to contribute to patient’s death. However, there are a lot of ways to conduct patient’s death and these ways have multiple nuances which make them legally and morally contradictory. Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and voluntary active euthanasia (VAE) are the most common classifications of such death conduction. The PAS is when a physician gives a patient all the necessary tools to commit suicide; when VAE is when a physician does some actions like lethal injection that immediately kill patient. Both of the deaths happen because of patient’s special request to help him with dying (Bernat, Gert &Mogielnicki 2723). All the three types of either killing or letting die cause multiple discussions about their legibility and moral mandate to dispose life and death that in fact nobody has. Also, they question the responsibility and those who hold it for someone’s death in cases of euthanasia or permitted suicide. The main issue lies in distinction between patient’s refusal of life-support or request to stop his life. Request causes more ethical problems because it requires either for somebody else to take responsibility for killing the patient or making patient himself to become a person that commits suicide which is unacceptable for most people because of their ethical and religious principles. Thus it turns out that, unlike elderly, in case of terminal illness a patient has more moral rights to make euthanasia request, because some diseases are just unbearable on their last stages so a person’s life turns into a nightmare. However, the aspect of quality of life causes a separate discussion, because it estimates the value of life not from the point of view that life itself is a value, but regarding a good life as a valuable one, when life in constant suffering appears to have no point. Suffering challenges personality and helps one to feel one’s own indispensability, thus the life appears to be more valuable and unique. If we investigate life from the perspective of its inherent tasks, we may come to the conclusion that the life is always the more meaningful, the more difficulties it experienced. It all depends on the meaning of the sufferings which man sees, what for he is willing to tolerate them. Someone can tolerate sufferings for an idea, for the sake of love, for the sake of creativity; someone is finding out the religious sense of his sufferings. There are those who simply tolerate, without seeing any higher idea (Van der Maas, 670). Thus the term "euthanasia" has recently acquired the new meaning in bioethics terminology. Bioethics is a new discipline, as well as the corresponding area of scientific and medical practices that deals with specific moral dilemmas that arise in a scientific experiment and clinical practice due to the fact that new technologies fundamentally empower treatment, allowing penetrating the genetic mechanisms that influence directly on the psyche. Bioethics discusses the problem of euthanasia basing on the distinction of treatments, types of patients and situations; focusing on very specific analysis, and it goes even further – it requires investigation of each possible case of euthanasia in its uniqueness (Rachels, 103). The aspect of quality of life in terms of euthanasia raises the question: “Is the existence within the confines of a hospital bed is a human perspective?” As a consequence, it inevitably causes the inability to care about oneself, and thus a dependence on relatives and nurses. Of course, modern medicine has an arsenal of tools, such as morphine, which are able to "facilitate" sufferings of deathly ill patients. But at the same time those drugs destroy human mind and psyche of the patient, even though they cure, they are still drugs. Thus, while “improving” patients life, human personality is being destroyed by those medical curing. The same happens with people who suffer from elderly problems. They see no point in their lives, feeing that they’ve become a burden for their relatives and don’t feel enjoyment in their lives any more. These thoughts ruin their mental harmony and don’t let them live normally without feeling guilty and miserable. Does such life worth living? If to look at this problem from rational perspective only, it is a personal choice of each and every human being. In addition anyone would agree that life is good as long as the pleasure prevails over suffering and positive emotions over negative ones. So euthanasia seems to be the only solution in some cases (for instance, when life cannot be maintained in other way except while suffering and those suffering cannot be relieved in other way except accelerating death). Thus if suffering is evil, then how can we morally justify the preservation of life, which has become an eternal suffering? This argument is very strong, especially when life is totally painful. That is why the liberal policy of European and United States seems to be logical continuation of the thought, according to which the value of human life comes to be secondary to the will of a person. It means that the decision of a person who is not psychotic and who may be responsible for own actions is the most valuable. A person who is adequate and does not suffer from mental disorders may do anything with one’s own body and life and hold responsibility for the decision, unless it causes harm to others or is prohibited by the legal law (Seale, 650). However the most typical argument against euthanasia arises here and concerns ethical approach to the issue. It claims that the modern society doesn’t appreciate the gift of life. That is why some religious authorities consider that legalization of voluntary death is irresponsible, as the life of a suffering person is not less valuable (Quill, 64). It is a hedonic approach to enjoy life only when it is good and to decrease its value when we do not get pleasure out of it (Meier n.pag.). It is important to note that doctors must save people and maintain their existence. However, some testimonies argue that if the fate has really prepared a persons death, it will always find a way to make a doctors help to come too late. If this does not happen, the doctor must pursue his mission and never assume the role of fate as well as make decisions whether to leave the patients life or not basing on his own philosophical beliefs. Legalized euthanasia might lead to a devaluation of the dignity and to the corruption of the doctor’s professional duty to preserve, but not to end life. "Right to die" can easily become a threat to the life of patients whose treatment is lack of funds (Solarino, 546). In this matter the concept of "rational suicide" is being used. It describes the ability of a person to sum up the whole life consciously and to decide whether he/she wants to reject any further existence. It mostly should concern people with terminal illnesses and elderly problems. But first of all each person’s ability to judge adequately and evaluate one’s own life with sufficient objectivity must be questioned beforehand. This is especially truthful when a person comes to the conclusion that his/her problems are intractable or that the only possible solution is to commit a suicide. No matter how strong this conviction is, it still remains subjective. No one can know in advance whether the way he/she assesses the situation is the right one and whether he/she is objective in one’s own judgments. Thus it would be unethical to decide whether even the worse life has no meaning or sense until an objective detector of criteria of life value is invented. Works Cited Bernat, James L., Gert, Bernard, Mogielnicki, R. Peter. “Patient Refusal of Hydration and Nutrition: An Alternative to Physician Assisted Suicide or Voluntary Active Euthanasia”. Arch Intern Med. 153(1993):2723-2731. Rachels, James. “Active and passive euthanasia.” Bioethics: An Introduction to the History, Methods, and Practice. Pearlman, Jones & Bartlett Learning, 1997. Van der Maas P.J., van Delden J.J.M., Pijnenborg L., Looman C.W.N. "Euthanasia and other medical decisions concerning the end of life" The Lancet. September 1991: 669-674. Rachels, James. The End of Life: Euthanasia and Morality. Oxford University Press, 1986. Quill, Timothy E. "Physicians Should “Assist in Suicide” When It Is Appropriate". The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 40(2012): 57-65 Seale C., Addington-Hall J. “Euthanasia: why people want to die earlier?” Elsevier. September 1994: 647–654. Meier, D.E. and others. "A National Survey of Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the United States". Journal of Medicine, June 29. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199804233381706#t=article Solarino, Biagio. "A national survey of Italian physicians’ attitudes towards end-of-life decisions following the death of Eluana Englaro". Intensive Care Medicine 37(2011), 542-549. Read More