You Dont Know Jack the Life and Death of Jack Kevorkian - Research Paper Example

You Don’t Know Jack: the Life and Death of Jack Kevorkian Assisted suicide is the terminology used for actions by which an individual helps another individual in bringing out his own death on his will (Emanuel, p793). Assistance here means using such equipment or actions in which the other person can die mercifully. The assisting equipment may be drugs, and other incentives used under the medical prescriptions. The people wanting to embrace death are usually those who suffer from incurable diseases. It is obvious that their life is going to end, in addition with a lot of pain. Such people lose their quality of life and they can be given assisted death under the health department permissions (Forman and Schumann, p14). This is one of the parts of the advancements made in the medical health technologies. Where there are ways and medicines to give people a long life, and reduce the number of deaths, there are also every kind of treatments to reduce the pain and sufferings of a person. It is not wrong to call it a way to end the relentless pain that certain diseases may cause. Medical technology has shown that assisted suicide is a better way of ending a life, rather than letting the body deteriorate over the period of time (Annas, p1240. Depiction of Assisted Suicide in movie You Don’t Know Jack: The Life and Deaths of Jack Kevorkian There has been a long debate over the fact that whether assisted suicide is right or wrong. There are many ends to this discussion and different groups have shown their views over this issue. It has been a religious and legal issue (Snyder and Caplan, p34). While many are debating over the fact that assisted suicide should be legalized, many are debating over it being wrong in terms of religious values. Assisted suicide is considered selfishness, immoral, irrational and cowardly. Whereas, the one who favours it say that it is a part of human rights, that if a person can get the freedom of living in a country, then why cannot he get the right to die? It is the choice of the person completely, and is a sole decision in which the state or the religious extremists are not supposed to intervene. However, these thoughts are well illustrated in the movie “You Don’t Know Jack: The Life and Deaths of Jack Kevorkian”, a 2010 released HBO movie. The movie is structured on Jack Kevorkian’s life and decisions he made to fulfil people’s desires to die due to certain illness. It starts off with Jack watching a patient from the window suffering from pain and wanting to die. Jack tells his sister that this is the same that happened with their mom. However, they realized that this is the field in which Jack can make his name and professionalize. It was the nature of his thoughts and his experiences which told him that it is a patient’s decision to choose life or death. The movie shows this ordinary doctor living in a country where there is freedom of thought and choice. Jack realizes how much the medical field is in need of such a practice, as there are many patients suffering helplessly. Now he thinks of starting the practice of assisted suicide for those who are fatally ill. He does not care about the media or the legal system, he believes in relieving the people under their own will from living a life that gives them pain and sufferings. The movie shows his practice when he decided to help a patient end her life when she was only 50 and suffering Alzheimer. She was in pain and she asked Jack to let her die, he was ready to do so. He claimed that it was her choice whether she wanted to live or die and that she had the freedom of choice to choose her way, he was only helping her. This is the reason why Dr Jack was also called Dr Death. He is the one who first introduced this practice and bought advancement in the medical history. This was the first time such a practice was taking place openly and Jack Kevorkian was not afraid of people opposing him. The movie further shows the ups and downs he faced and above all his righteousness to stand on his decision. He, not only wanted to carry out this practice, but also wanted to legalize it. He wanted assisted suicide to be incorporated as a law rather only being a saviour of the patients who are suffering endless pain. Thus his notions were greatly opposed by the different groups. The religious groups who were the believers of God claimed that only God has the right to give and take away the life of a human being and so this is a false practice. Furthermore they debated that whatever pain and sufferings a person is facing are because of his wrong doings and are the tests of God to test one’s patience and faith. Assisted Suicide and American Society The advocates of human rights state that it is a right of every human being to choose when to end his life. Assisted suicide is considered to be a choice of freedom, though it is continuously being opposed by the religious scholars. It is a debate going on between the advocated of human rights and the religious scholars. Thus, for the opponents, it is simply a right action that can be performed under the will of anyone owning a human life, whereas for the religious groups it is an act of selfishness to end a life that was not created by the person himself and so that does not give him the right to end it. Though the issue of assisted suicide being legal is still unclear in many statutes, in USA and the UK the debate on the legality of assisted suicide is still an on-going process. It is debated that since many cases related to assistant suicide are not bought to the court, it should be legalized. These issues were highlighted by Dr Jack Kevorkian and looked into deeply. In Britain, suicide is no more a crime, but assisted suicide is still illegal. In USA, there are certain states such as Oregon where the assisted suicide is now legal. Other countries include Belgium and Netherlands where the assisted suicide law has been passed. There seems to be less time left when assisted suicide will be considered legal in every part of the world. However, there are many reasons and arguments supporting the fact that assisted suicide should not be legalized. These arguments have risen due to the fact that assisted suicide has a very negative impact on the society. Its increasing trend has been a threat to the society. There are many impacts of assisted suicide on the society and most of them are negative. Assisted suicide may have many impacts on the family of the patient. These impacts may be in the form of guilt, depression, anger or regret. It is never easy to see a loved one die in front of you no matter what the issue is, so we do expect an emotional phase triggered amongst the family members. Moreover, there are also effects of the assisted suicide on the society as a whole. It is widely believed by the philosophers and social activists that no man is allowed to harm others in the name of his freedom. When a person dies, a whole life dies with him. A life that has many people associated with him, a society that feels the impact of demise. Especially when it is about assisted suicide, the health-care professionals are involved who have to take the decision of mercy killing. These practices have long term effects on the society and the people. There are continuous developments being made for the advancements of the medical technologies to find the cure to every disease. However, whenever a life is lost due to assisted suicide, the research and studies are threatened. Overall the society is brutalized by giving the patient a right to die because of the pain and suffering. What if the doctors get to know later that there was a cure, or that they had diagnosed the patient wrongly? The contemporary religious views on assisted suicide are that it is a sin and it should not be practiced. Whereas the advocated of the human rights claim that a person has the right to die. Both the views greatly contradict each other. However, if we consider the laws, the laws show that assisted suicide will be legal in a couple of years just like suicide is no more a crime. In the 21st century, assisted suicide is becoming more popular and might become a ‘duty to kill’ in a few years. Although medical technology is advancing so much that there are cures to every disease available now. Hence, the assisted suicide trends should come down. Conclusion Assisted suicide is one of the major issues in the 21st century. This is one issue that is a threat to medical advancements, human lives and the society at whole. This issue should be solved in the best way possible. This issue will create many problems in the near future for the society building. A strong society is what brings the strength in the nation and the progress, thus it is one of the main aims. Many countries have still not legalized assisted suicide and do not seem to legalize it, but the increasing awareness tends to bring this issue in most of the courts. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, there were a lot of suicides observed. The suicide rate has increasingly grown since the past century. When the reason was sorted out, it was the lack of hospitalization and cure for those diseases because of which the patients thought of themselves as their threats. And then the trend of assisted suicides came when Dr Jack Kevorkian first suggested this practice and put many of the patients to assisted suicide. The awareness was spread after the release of the movie “You Don’t Know Jack: The Life and Deaths of Jack Kevorkian”. It was the first time when this topic was openly discussed and changed the meaning of medical history. Dr Jack faced a lot but he was successful in bringing the topic of assisted suicide into consideration. This has greatly put an impact upon the medical professionals and the patients for the better. Work Cited Ezekiel J. Emanuel. "History of Euthanasia Debates in the United States and Britain". Annals of Internal Medicine 121 (10): 793–802, 1994 George J. Annas. "Death by Prescription. The Oregon Initiative". The New England Journal of Medicine 331 (18): 1240–1243, 2004 Lois Snyder, Arthur L. Caplan. Assisted Suicide: Finding Common Ground. NJ: Indiana University Press, 2002 Lillian Forman, John Henning Schumann. Assisted Suicide. NY: ABDO, 2008 You don’t know Jack; the life and deaths of Jack Kevorkian. Director Barry Levinson, HBO, 2010. Read More