Kelly Taylor, a 30 year old woman dying from Eisenmenger’s syndrome, and Klippel-Feil syndrome, lives in constant pain and has been given a year to live (Guardian). Ms.Taylor refused to eat for 19 days, trying to end her life. The pain became so severe that she decided it was less dignified than her current medical conditions, and began to eat again. Ms.Taylor was denied the right to end her life, outweighing her current conditions. She is just one example of thousands of people enduring a living hell with no way out. Euthanasia could help end suffering for people like Kelly Taylor. It would allow patients to end their life the way they wished to in peace. Active euthanasia and physician assisted suicide should be legalized in Minnesota for all the people in need of help and to end their suffering.
Euthanasia is currently, and has been a very debated topic in today’s society. Euthanasia is defined as “the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy” (Merriam-Webster). Euthanasia in today’s world can also be classified as Mercy Killing or Physician assisted suicide.
Tony Nicklinson, a former rugby player and civil engineer was diagnosed with locked in syndrome. Locked in syndrome is “a rare neurological disorder in which there is complete paralysis of all voluntary muscles except for the ones that control the movements of the eyes,” (WebMD). Tony could barely speak nor produce any movements resulting from a stroke in 2005. Tony’s request to end his life was rejected twice by high court judges, one in 2010 and again in 2012(Rainey). Tony Nicklinson passed away on August 22, 2012 after refusing to eat since the last court ruling. His last words were, “don’t mourn for me, i’m already dead,” (Rainey). People like Kelly Taylor and Tony Nicklinson are reaching for our help…but we are turning the other way.
One may say that ending someone’s life is playing “the role of god” and is morally unjust, but isn’t letting one suffer and not helping even more morally wrong? Active euthanasia would be here to make the quality of life better for everyone in the last moments. Terry Pratchett, an author diagnosed with early onset alzheimer’s states, “As I have said, I would like to die peacefully with Thomas Tallis on my iPod before the disease takes me over and I hope that will not be for quite some time to come, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice.”(Pratchett) Active Euthanasia would give people the freedom to choose when and where they wish to pass. Thus making the idea of death for the person and family members much easier to cope with. This would allow time for family members and friends to say their goodbyes, but most important it allows the person to pass with their dignity and family members by their side.
The opposing side to active euthanasia is just the opposite of dying with dignity. Some believe that the process of active euthanasia is equal to that of murder. Such as Author Jared Dale Combista, activist against euthanasia explains, “Euthanasia is the deliberate killing of a person’s life, and so is murder”(IGNITUM). In today’s world yes, it is considered murder, but to an extent. It is defined as deprivation of another person’s life, punishable by prison for a minimum sentence of 5 years (Banovic and Turanjanin). If you go by the legal definition of murder, it will fall under it but is it actually murder? With our huge technologies advancements we are able to keep people alive much longer than the natural world would like to have us around. A recent study done shows the average life expectancy of all person’s in the United States and around the world from 1880 to 2011. In 1901 the average life expectancy in the United was 49.3 years old, with no technology around to help prolong life(Roser). Fast forward to 2011 and the average life expectancy in the U.S. is 78.7(Roser). We have greatly affected our length of life with advances such as life support. Life support is a machine that can take the role of a major system in your body if it were to fail, such as lungs (WebMD). So in reality we are prolonging our lives beyond what the natural world has set up for us in the first place. So ending someone’s life when they subsequently shouldn’t be alive in the first place can not be classified as murder.
Religious background also sways this thought process greatly. As we see the Vatican “condemned cancer patient Brittany Maynard’s decision to end her life,” (Saul). A 29 year old, terminally ill brain cancer patient ended her life by taking a legally prescribed life ending drug. She explains that “wanted to die peacefully and with dignity – not in the way doctors had told her a brain tumour would bring her life to an end,” (Saul). If we view ending someone’s life to take them out of suffering as murder then doctors are committing the act of murder all over the country. According to the American Hospital Association about 70 percent of the deaths in hospitals happen after a decision has been made to withhold treatment (Kolata). This is the act of Passive Euthanasia, the “refusal of life-sustaining treatment of a patient or his surrogate decision-maker,” (NCBI). So why is Active euthanasia being rejected when doctors all over the United States are using passive Euthanasia to end patients lives?
The cost of not allowing Active Euthanasia in our health system is physically tearing people apart and also our checkbook. According to KHN News in 2011, Medicare spending reached $554 billion, which was 21% of the total money spent on U.S. health care in that year. Of the $554 billion spent in 2011, medicare spent $170 billion on patients in their last six months of life (Pasternak). We are theoretically spending money on patients that don’t want our help. According to Ira Byock, a doctor at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. “it costs up to $10,000 a day to maintain someone in the intensive care unit(Court). Some patients remain here for weeks or even months” (CBS). Upward of 20% of Americans spend their last days in an ICU (CBS). The cost of end of life care is money we don’t have, especially when we are paying for people who don’t want it.
Our lives are like very complex moving machines that we are told to keep working as long as we possibly can. But what if we have looked at life the wrong way..? Instead let’s cherish one’s quality of life over the length of their life. Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon and author helps us better understand this viewpoint. He explains we need to understand, “whose lives could be saved, who’s couldn’t be, and whose shouldn’t be” (Kalanithi). He states, “I made mistakes. Rushing a patient to the OR to save only enough brain that his heart beats but he can never speak … and he is condemned to an existence he would never want” (Kalanithi). As hard as it could be to face the truth, one’s existence should be determined on their quality of life not the number of days they are technically living.
Each and everyone of us should have the right to choose if we like the quality of our own life. We are all individuals. I do not know the pain that Jennifer Glass, a terminally ill cancer patient has, or Ione Cheryl, a terminally ill leukemia patients has (DWD). So I have no right to tell them that their life here on earth is better than what may come next. So let’s re-think what we are actually taking away from people. Allowing others the choice to end their life isn’t going to affect yours, but it could help save someone from a living hell. By legalizing euthanasia we would be simply giving people the right to say no to someone trying to prolong their death. The world is filled with enough suffering, so let’s stop sitting back and watch while people are screaming for our help.