Bryan+On+Kevorkian+and+Euthanasia

Assisted suicide is clearly a highly contentious issue. When it comes to the matter of life and death, literally, there is a lot to be discussed. Euthanasia is not simple, there are not two opposing ideas of moral inequality, there are multiple differing opinions on what to do if a person wants to die. Cardinal Franjo Seper and Allison Davis are both in favor of there being a universal code against active euthanasia, and Pieter Admiraal and Chris Hill are or were proponents of assisted suicide. I believe strongly in patient's rights. If an individual wants to end their lives after being given a psychological evaluation and after a significant amount of thought, then it is their right to do so.

Cardinal Franjo Seper was responsible for writing the official position of the Catholic Church in regards to euthanasia. His opinion is, therefore, based primarily off of the Catholic Church's translation of the Holy Bible. He states that "No one can make an attempt on the life of an innocent person, without violating a fundamental right, and therefore without committing a crime of the utmost gravity." The argument is that any doctor that actively participates in killing a patient is playing God, but they are truly forgoing God's plans. Active euthanasia is, according to Seper, a "rejection of God's sovereignity and loving plan." To the Cardinal, life is not simply a state of being but a right given to a human directly from God, a right that must be carried out without attempting for an early exit. The Cardinal's position, and the Catholic Church's opinion, of passive euthanasia is more lenient. If a patient has unbearable suffering and will die without significant immediate treatment, such as a breathing aparatus or constant intake of medication, they can be taken "off the machine" so to speak and die of natural causes. Seper states, "When inevitable death is imminent in spite of the means used, it is permitted in conscience to take the decision to refuse forms of treatment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life." The Catholic Church believes there is an inherent difference between refusing medical treatment and dying and an increase in medical treatment and dying.

Allison Davis was born with myelomeningocele spina bifida. As such, she lives with a physical disability that plagues her life, but she enjoys and values living. She wrote an open letter to protest a piece of legislation that allowed doctors to not give treatment to handicapped babies. She feels that allowing doctors to decide whether another human being lives or dies takes away the humanization of a patient. "I am sure though that no doctor could have predicted when I was 28 days old... that despite my physical problems I would lead such a full and happy life." She goes even further and states that there is a slippery slope between the decriminalization of not providing care to handicapped children to the murder of the handicapped citizenry, which would be "just as it did in Hitler's Germany." As both a handicapped person and an advocate, her opinions have a personal touch that most people talking about euthanasia cannot understand.

Chris Hill chose to kill himself. An active person before a hang-gliding accident, Hill became a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair. He did not enjoy his quality of life after the accident, going as far as to say that living was "a challenge, many of you said. Bullshit. My life was just a miserable existence, an awful parody of normalcy. What's a challenge without some reward to make it worthwhile?" He truly believed that the only escape from his existence was death, regardless of what that meant. He decided that he would rather not exist than exist without the use of his lower body. He sait that he "accepted death - embraced it eagerly, in fact, after so many months of the nightmare - without fear or regret." Hill wanted to die, whether a doctor helped him do that or not.

Doctor Pieter Admiraal of the Netherlands is an advocate of active euthanasia. He states definitively that "Active voluntary euthanasia is but one more way of delivering humane medical care." He gives two personal examples of patients that he has actively helped die in an effort to explain his reasoning as to why he promotes active voluntary euthanasia: the first was Carla, a terminally ill patient, and the second was Esther who suffered from multiple sclerosis in the early stages and was not (technically speaking) terminally ill. His reasoning behind ending Carla's life before "natural causes" took over was relatively simple, "Even the best of palliative care cannot alleviate all suffering, cannot always make it bearable." His position is that human beings should have the right to choose to end their lives if they are in tremendous pain. Esther did not want to become dependent on other people to survive, and she did not want to live in constant pain, so she chose early on to end her life. He believes that doctors can "practise active voluntary euthanasia not only in situations of terminal illness, but also when a patient who is not terminally ill seeks release from a medical condition that imposes unrelievable and unbearable suffering." He practices medicine and also is participatory in ending the lives of his patient, but he does not view these two things as contradictory. He disagrees with Allison Davis' claim of a slippery slope scenario, stating " I do not accept that there is a slippery slope. A clear moral and legal boundary can be drawn around the notion of consent. This notion of consent, based on respect for the patient's autonomy, is the centrepiece and backbone of the legal framework governing voluntary euthanasia." He believes it is a "basic human right to say: 'Enough is enough. I want to die with my dignity intact. Please help me.'"

It is difficult to legislate morality. Policies like the extension of the Bush tax cuts may lead to heated discussion, but that is nothing like gay marriage, abortion and yes euthanasia. I do believe that there is a religious group, that Cardinal Franjo Seper is a part of, that is responsible for the rejection of progress in regards to the freedom of the people. If someone is terminally ill, handicapped or suffering from an incurable debilitating disease, they should absolutely have the ability to end their lives if they choose to.

I understand why handicapped people, like Allison Davis, would be worried about this. A lot has been said about how allowing assisted suicide is a slippery slope to mandating suicide, and how that argument is a slippery slope fallacy. All I am trying to do is say why my feet are on relatively stable ground: individuals should have the right to commit suicide regardless of their condition. I believe that the handicapped should be able to have access to assisted suicide from a doctor. I also believe that a physically fit person should have the same ability. What it all comes down to is choice. As Admiraal stated, it is about protecting the patient's autonomy. Davis is absolutely correct when she says that doctors should not have the right to decide for anyone whether or not they are fit to live. It is the choice of the patient. I think that everyone can agree that there are individuals who genuinely want to die, and are of sound mind, and should have the authority to make decisions in regards to their life. Ramon Sampedro deserved the ability to make his own decision about whether to live or die. Denying individuals control over their own body is, in my opinion, more morally questionable than helping them die.

Jack Kevorkian is not a Neo-Nazi. There is a fundamental difference between killing someone and carrying out orders from a patient to up their doses of morphine to end their suffering. True, he does follow his beliefs with a considerable amount of zealotry. In arguing against the deeply religious about a highly contested issue, he has used the same argumentative techniques. Doctor Death is not a hero of mine, but his actions were morally permissable. He did not choose for the patients.

We cannot have rules that do not allow people to make the choices they wish to make in regards to their own life. I disagree with people who say that the government has a duty to protect life. The government has a duty to protect the value of life and individual choice. If someone truly wants to commit suicide, in any physical condition, the government nor any other body or group should not try to prolong the suffering and neither should doctors.