Nick+On+Kevorkian+and+Euthanasia

The issue used to be black and white. Alive or dead. That was it, there was no middle ground. Over the past few decades, medical developments have added the gray areas thrown into question today. We now have quadriplegia, permanent vegetative states, made possible by feeding tubes and ventilators, as well as life prolonged through complex medicines treated cancers. These and other modern medical developments have created a phase between fully functional life and death which some experience that is filled with extreme mental and physical anguish. In desperation, those suffering turn to their medical professionals, seeking a way out through euthanasia. The controversy lies in where to draw the line. Who in this gray area between unconditioned life and death should be eligible, should they seek it, for physician assisted suicide? Is it ever acceptable?

Many conservative and traditional groups would say, with an uncompromising certainty that, no, these life-taking practices are never acceptable. At the forefront of this side of the coin is surely religious groups, namely the Catholic Church. In Cardinal Seper's 1980 “Declaration on Euthanasia,” the high priest speaks of euthanasia as an act against God's divine plan. In his own words, it is stated that, “everyone has the duty to lead his or her life in accordance with God's plan.” In a more universal sense, the Cardinal is expressing that euthanasia is an abrupt interference of life not ready to end, comparable to homicide. This view is strengthened when he states, “no one can make an attempt on the life of an innocent person without opposing God's love for that person,” a view which leads to some tribulations. The clear flaw, as most would point out, is in the religious nature of the argument. Not every human obeys the words of the Bible, or any religious doctrine for that matter. Further, being in America, a strictly secular nation, it would be unfit for a governmental issue (euthanasia) requiring a law to be decided upon based on any sort of religious code. So, while the Cardinal's words have impact on the issue in the Christian context, they simply do not apply to the larger argument applying to the whole of humanity. Thus, it can only be considered void.

However, a more valid approach to the opposition of euthanasia is found in the argument that a handicapped life is no less valuable than any other. In her article “Right to Life of Handicapped,” Alison Davis explains that there is no reason disabled individuals should be made to feel less substantial or insignificant. Being born with myelomeningocele spina bifida, her parents were told by medical professionals to, essentially leave her to die and “go home and have another.” She goes further to say that “this notion of 'non-personhood' denies the right of handicapped people to be recognized as equal human beings in a caring society,” a statement which has authoritative depth, seeing as how Davis had traveled the world, and had been married for eight years at the time. She goes on to say that our constant devaluing of handicapped lives is on a slippery slope, someday perhaps comparable to Hitler's Germany, where, “killing a handicapped person of any age” is decriminalized.

In direct contrast to this viewpoint stands Pieter Admiraal, a defender of physician assisted suicide, active euthanasia and a current doctor practicing in the Dutch city of Delft. He makes it clear that he does not, “accept that there is a slippery slope,” in declaring that the most important aspect to physician practice, next to the well being of the patient, is patient autonomy. In this sense, he finds that it is improper to force a terminally ill person to live against their will, just as it is to force the same sort of person to die against their will. Admiraal finds that ending suffering through active euthanasia, “is but one more way of delivering humane medical care.”

Personally, I find my views falling in direct contrast to those of Alison Davis. Active euthanasia should not be viewed as something which devalues the lives of the handicapped because it should be an option offered to all Americans. We are mankind. We are the most powerful beings in the land. We have the ability to reason. We have the cranial development to make rational and intelligent choices based on fact and knowledge. There are no gods or kings, only mankind. The individual reigns supreme over all else in this world we find ourselves in, and one should have the right to place their own value on their own life. Disregard a slippery slope, or a declaration on the invaluable nature of life. The former is wild speculation and the latter is a matter of perception, untrue in the eyes of many.

There was life before us, there will be life after us. We are not some miraculous, divine, incredible force that was destined to be. We are an incomprehensibly complex collection of building blocks that randomly occurred over billions of years of slow development. To be a bit more crude, if I may, we are all, as my aunt once gracefully put it, members of the Lucky Sperm Club.

To bring my abstractions together, no one can say what is to happen upon death. No one can say a life is valuable just as they cannot say a life is not valuable. This brings me to my philosophy: choice. Man's ability to choose what is best, even if that means the yielding of one's own life is genuine and unique. Save perhaps anomalies (temporary mental instability), we possess the responsibility to make the proper and mature decision as to the status of our own lives. Simply because a doctor must administer and carry out this final decision should not cause reason for homicide charges.

Suffering is ended, life continues. As The Beatles sang, “when you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find peace of mind is waiting there. And the time will come when you see we're all one, and life flows on within you and without you.”