Legalizing Euthanasia in Oregon - Essay Example

Moral Issues Moral Issues Morals are beliefs that people associate them to political, religious, economic and philosophyapproaches. So, one’s morals will directly have an effect on his business and its success, moral issues arise from lack of beliefs e.g. there are heaven and hell, tends to behave in a certain way. Morals and values are intertwined words that are closely related yet they mean different things. Ethics is rules and guidelines that one is supposed to follow strictly during his career, different professions have different ethnic practices. For example, lawyers and doctors are two different professions that have different ethnic practices varying, what may be considered as a rightful deed to a lawyer may be seen as an unethical act when practicing medicine as a profession (Jokic, 2003). So, ethical issues arise as a result of different belief system either politically or religion related issues. For example, the issue of gays is perceived in various ways in different countries. In United States of America gays practice is seen as morally good and thus the law recognizes their rights. It is a result of different individuals in the parliament having different views and in this case majority approving the moral issue to be right. In contrast, in a country like Uganda in East Africa gay practice is seen as evil and morally wrong and even the parliament recognizes the practice as unlawful, evil and morally unacceptable. Consequently individuals thought to practice gay are law offenders and may face a sentence of up to fourteen years in prison (Jokic, 2003). Euthanasia is killing a person to relieve him or her too much pain and suffering incurable cancer that causes too much pain to bear. Germany is among the first nation’s in the world to legalize the practice. In the early 19th centuries, this practice became legal in many countries in the early years of 1980s to 2000s.The practice is still illegal in many states, in America and is legal in few states for example Oregon, Montana and Washington. Euthanasia practice varies in different countries guided by different values; this law requires a physician to administer a very strong sedative to the victim such that he or she goes to comma, after which a different process is used to end the life of the victim. It is the best of the victim to make a decision he or she wants the doctor terminate their lives and thus the practice in the legalized countries is referred by many as assisted suicide or mercy killing (Biggs, 2000). It has been 10 years since the Oregon started carrying out the death assisted suicides under the law called death with dignity law in the year 1997.The Oregon department of health services is required to gather and analyze the cases that take place in Oregon and under what circumstances they occur. The current number of the deaths in Oregon is still unknown but, the yearly reports indicate that the number of deaths since the first case has increased by 306%.This number could be much higher than this because of the inefficiency in the communication system, in this department. The issue of the lethal drug in Oregon been ineffective is also another serious case. There have been cases where some patients did not die because of the drugs having not been properly inspected and this led to the victims seeking alternative sources. For example, there is a case of a man who was prescribed with the suicide dose and later went to his home and took the dosage. It ended up causing physical symptoms such as vomiting. Her wife found him unconscious and called 911. He was later reported dead after he was discharged from the hospital. When things go wrong in Oregon there are hardly investigated as there was this guy David Pruett who took the prescribed dose in front of his family and went into a coma for 65 hrs. Dr. Hedbug in the hospital pointed out that the hospital has few resources to investigate individual deaths that occur. The British parliament had also a proceeding to question the integrity and efficiency of the Oregon. When doctors in Oregon were questioned as to whether they face any complications when carrying out their operations, they responded by declining there were no complications encountered. This strange and false because there have been many complaints by surviving witnesses of Oregon. There are still reports saying that the deaths in Oregon are mainly biased by financial gains as the report indicates that the rich cases of patients who were insured. Their cases were mainly determined as having been right for the practice to be carried out, however, the poor case of low class citizens whose cases were right they were mainly defined as not qualified for euthanasia. Utilitarian ethic is the most used form of a philosophical structure in the world by most individuals, the utilitarian theory tries to justify the good effects of something as long as it is useful despite the ways used to acquire the results are immorally upright. This principle of moral reasoning states that as long as the benefits achieved are many than the harm that can result then it is morally right to undertake the reasoning that comes with this ethic theory. It further states that as long as the results brings joy to the person or group with many benefits ripped then it is all right to take a course of action. Thus, ethic euthanasia has been legalized in many countries because it puts an end to suffering of the victim and brings a sense of peace and somewhat a little happiness to the victim’s family. Since it relieves them the pain of having to see their loved ones suffer every single day (Mc Douglas et al., 2008). To justify this theory in the case of euthanasia, it has seen that the victim incurs hospital bill expenses every single passing day. Chronic disease such as cancer or leukemia makes the person every day to suffer great pain probing a conclusion that he/she will never survive the disease. In turn, this makes his relatives to mourn in pain for their dear one. It is in such grounds that the law such as euthanasia is legalized. Since, when it is administered the victim’s family benefits in saving the recourse that would have been spent and this result, to no benefits. In this case, the resource would rather be saved and be used on the victim’s family. For instance: raising the victims’ children and give them the life their guardian would have been able to give them (Jenkins, 2007). These principles have been defined by different individuals in history some describing it in terms of the pain, pleasure, an economic cost among others. Despite the great benefits associated with this theory in terms of all this parameters. If people rely solely on this principle as the major process of making moral decisions, then we will have suppressed the course of justice. It is so, because an idea or action decided may be very useful but it does not consider the amount of injustice it will bring forth. Hence in legalizing euthanasia, the practice may be beneficial in some ways but it denies the victim gift of life. A patient that has gone to a coma is no longer able to make personal decisions thus; his or her relatives make the decision on behalf of him. Some of the victims affected are Christians believing in God as the giver of life. So, the gift of life is deprived of them together with their virtues and principles of hope to never give up are taken away from them forcibly. Even though this process takes the major of the most interest of people at heart there are still several persons that are left heartbroken, demoralized and treated unfairly. Doctor Jack Kevorkian famously nicknamed by many as doctor death, was a physician who assisted many ill patients end their lives. He claimed to have assisted approximately one hundred and thirty patients into the voluntary death. Despite that, he widely stirred the euthanasia debate around the globe. Kevorkian never married, after practicing as a pathologist and failed to succeed in this field, he left medicine as a profession and was homeless for some time. Over the years, he came with many ideas concerning death. In 1959, he wrote a journal saying that prisoners faced with the death penalty should be given the choice to decides their way of death through euthanasia and their bodies used for medical experimentation. He also advocated for collecting of organs of the death convicted people and using them on the ill patients. In early 1990s, he was accused of assisting a patient who was troubled by abusing the diseases without referring her first to a psychiatrist. The charges were dropped because the Oregon had not reviewed the euthanasia case guidelines. Research carried out by the press showed that Jack abused the guidelines outlined which applied only to the terminally ill patients. In 1999, he was charged with homicide 2nd degree murder and sentenced to 15yrs in prison and was later granted parole in the year 2007. It was done under an agreement that he would not debate on the matters of euthanasia again, he later died of thrombosis. References Biggs, H. (2000). Euthanasia, death with dignity and the law. Oxford: Hart. Jenkins, J. (2007). Introducing moral issues. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Jokić, A. (2003). Humanitarian intervention: Moral and philosophical issues. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press. Manning, M. (2008). Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: Killing or caring? New York, NY: Paulist Press. McDougall, J. F., Gorman, M., & Roberts, C. S. (2008). Euthanasia: A reference handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO. Read More