Legalization of Voluntary Euthanasia - Essay Example

Legalization of voluntary euthanasia Insert Name Institution Date: Abstract After the Second World War there was a determination of never tolerating deliberate abuses of human rights in all nations around the world. There was an agreement that states would have regard to the basic human rights in the accent of public policy. Despite of that determination, there are many abuses of human rights that go on in the world today and one such area is euthanasia. This paper will discuss whether it is possible to justify the legalization of voluntary euthanasia in the light of Article 6 using human rights principles. Introduction Though the problem of Euthanasia is considered to be an ancient one, it has acquired a new urgency and relevance in the recent years. As a matter of fact the issue is increasingly the topic of public debate and this recent prominence of the same can be linked to various interrelated factors. One of the major factors is the institutionalization of the dying process. The remarkable advances in sustaining people’s lives are faced by a negative consequence of prolonging human life unnecessarily. Many people do not fear death rather they fear the likelihood of dying in extremely painful as well as undignified manner. The interest of quality to life for those dying has encouraged renewed concerns in euthanasia (Otlowski, 2000). The increasing number of the elderly people, the growing number of the individuals affected by HIV/AIDS and the decreasing influence of planned religion are some of the other factors that have fuelled the euthanasia debate. A society which clearly tells the dying and the disabled that they are cared and loved for and that their lives have not lost meaning offers a positive legal, social as well as ethical environment in relation to care for the aged. On the other hand, a society that informs those people that no longer feel that their lives have got any meaning that it is okay to feel that way and gives them an ethical, social and legal approval of terminating their lives by a lethal injection offers a very negative environment for their care (Otlowski, 2000). Understanding voluntary euthanasia Voluntary euthanasia is the intentional killing of a sick person by an omission or act by someone who has been legally authorized to do so after the request of the patient. Basically, the driving force to voluntary euthanasia is the compassion for the state in which the sick person finds himself or herself. In other words this form of euthanasia is killing intentionally and the aim is to relieve suffering of the patient. However, doctors do not seem to differentiate motive and intention. The motive displayed by a particular doctor in killing the sick person so as to relieve pain could be a very laudable and understandable motive. However, this does not alter the fact that the particular omission or act chosen by the doctor primarily motivated by the desire to relieve suffering is chosen simply because the doctor’s intention is to kill the patient (Cohen & Wellman, 2005). When a doctor executes voluntary euthanasia therefore he/she commits homicide. What is legally and morally important in medical decisions at the end of life is whether the doctor’s non-treatment decision is related to the fact that on his best clinical judgment, the treatment would ultimately be futile or whether in withdrawing treatment the doctor intends to kill the patient. Voluntary euthanasia as a contravention of human rights The most significant role of every state is to give conditions in which citizens of the state can team up in peace for the common good. The recognition of the intrinsic dignity along with inalienable and equal rights to all members in the human family is based on the foundation of peace, justice and freedom in the world. Many countries have committed themselves to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Universal Declaration of Human Rights among other covenants and declarations. Inalienable human rights are those rights that an individual may not under any circumstance deprive himself or be deprived. Thomas Hobbes, a political philosopher who had a great influence on the talk concerning human right described the law of nature as a general rule based on reason where one is forbidden to do that which can destroy his life (Fleming, 2000). Basically, if fundamental human rights are no longer inalienable and if people are allowed to give up those fundamental rights, then it becomes hard for the state or government to offer protection for the fundamental rights of others, particularly to the vulnerable and the weak. Take for instance an example on freedom as one of the fundamental rights. If people begin to give up their right to freedom by selling themselves as slaves, this would consequently undermine the state’s ability to save the freedom of those who do not want to be slaves. Allowing some members of the states to have a pre-choice on their freedom would lead to legalization of the slave trade to some extent. When that happens, others, especially the vulnerable and weak will be pushed into slave trade non-voluntarily. Under such conditions, the state will never legalize the slave trade to the people who would wish to get involved voluntarily not even under compassionate reasons (Fleming, 2000). The case is similar with the right to life, a fundamental right defined as absolute. Legalized voluntary euthanasia is involved with the modification of the homicidal law that allows intentional killing of the sick by the physician at the request of the patient and out of the compassionate motive. In other words, legal voluntary euthanasia is kind of an exception to the ordinary rule against the killing of innocent human beings. Under these circumstances, the capacity of the state to offer protection to the vulnerable and the weak from non-voluntarily euthanasia is really undermined or compromised. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not in any way exclude voluntary euthanasia as it includes the right to liberty and security of person along with right to life as basic inalienable human rights. Basically the declaration does so by referring to right to life inalienable. If a state allows the fundamental human rights to be alienable it means that the rights of all individuals are placed an unacceptable risk (Robertson, 1993). It will be ethically wrong for a state to modify the law to open an opportunity to kill innocent human beings basing on their personal request. This would thereafter contravene the foundation of civilized society as conformed in the human rights documents. The right to life is the single right expressly defined to be “inherent” to all. According to Professor Margaret Somerville, Professor of Law, the most basic value or norm in our societies are based on us not killing each other. Irrespective of how merciful or compassionate our reasons may be for practicing euthanasia, it still changes that value of not killing each other to one which we can kill in some cases. It would be inherently wrong to go against the values and norms of our society. The state has the responsibility of fostering and preserving the benefits provided by every human being in the community. A healthy community only thrives where there is exchange of expressions of affections, humorous incidents, and material contributions as well as exchange of ideas that its members support and create. The value of a person’s life to others is far so precious to allow the person claim a constitutional right to complete autonomy in concluding to end that life (Supreme Court of the United States). A dangerous policy The question at hand is whether there exists any empirical evidence that clearly shows that voluntary euthanasia acts are usually accompanied by non-voluntary euthanasia practice. The answer is a clear ‘yes’. The evidence is found in South Australia where the act is not legally allowed and in Netherlands where it is tolerated legally. There has been a Dutch case which clearly elaborates the violation of strict medical guidelines in Netherlands. According to Dutch doctors, the intolerable suffering of the sick is the only ground that grants the person a quiet death. However, the issue of the desire for a quiet death is not included in the grounds for legally allowed euthanasia. Further research has shown that there are some non-life-threatening conditions that are said to be within the circle of intolerable pain. This opens a way for patients to get access to euthanasia particularly for psychiatric reasons which sometimes raises the fundamental questions concerning the competence of the person to seek for such a request. The evidence gathered from Netherlands indicates that strict medical guidelines that have been stated by the courts are neither enforced nor followed. This evidence clearly shows that as doctors in Netherlands practice voluntary euthanasia in most cases there is a great accompaniment of non-voluntary euthanasia. The evidence shows that it is completely impossible to practice voluntary euthanasia without incorporating non-voluntary euthanasia. Non- voluntary euthanasia is inevitable caused by voluntary euthanasia in most cases. This is clearly elaborated in a study carried out in South Australia concerning the behavior of doctors in the same state. The report shows that the highest percentage is composed of doctors who have never been requested by patients to carry out voluntary euthanasia so as to bring death and yet in the long run, the patients have been killed (Christine & Riaz, 1994). The proponents of voluntary euthanasia hold the assumption that doctors who break the law would automatically abide to the law if voluntary euthanasia was legalized. If voluntary euthanasia was legalized today in our society, it means that there would be more doctors breaking the law and more patients would be killed out of their consent. Conclusion The belief that in the process of killing innocent human being others die in the process shows that it is quite hard to differentiate acts of voluntary euthanasia from those of non-voluntary euthanasia. Legalizing voluntary euthanasia would mean the killing of particular human beings who would not be termed as persons. This would be the ultimate justification for the practice. However, according to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, there should be no division of the human family. Every human being is a person and therefore legal euthanasia would represent an abuse of international law and every citizen would be exposed to irrational risk to right to life. References Christine A. & Riaz H., "Management of death, dying and euthanasia: attitudes and practices of medical practitioners in South Australia", Journal of Medical Ethics, March 1994, vol 20 no 1, 41-46 Cohen, A. & Wellman, C. (2005). Contemporary debates in applied ethics. New York, Wiley- Blackwell. Fleming, J.2000. Euthanasia: Human Rights and Inalienability. http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/fle/fle_01euthhumanright.html Retrieved April 19th 2011 Otlowski, M. (2000). Voluntary Euthanasia and the Common Law. New York, Oxford University Press. Robertson, G.(1993) Freedom, The Individual and the Law, Penguin, London, 1993 (7th Edition). Supreme Court of the United States, No 95-1858, Vacco v Quill, June 26 1997, 16 Read More