Cassandra+On+Kevorkian+and+Euthanasia

While euthanasia means an “easy death”, our society certainly doesn’t make this route to end your life easy or seem completely ethical. Many members of society advocate for patients to have the right to assisted suicide, such as Dr. Kevorkian while many oppose the idea, specifically the Catholic Church. I believe that if patients want to die, then we should let them. However, I feel that the patients need to be of sound mind when making this decision, and that doctors need to ensure that this is what the patients truly wants. Dr. Kevorkian has become the “infamous” doctor who advocates for euthanasia, and has even performed the act with his own hands. He is noble for being so upfront about what he does, while other doctors just give extra morphine in the dark hours of the night in their hospitals. So, is the cowardly doctor the noble one, or is Dr. Kevorkian? I believe that if your willing to perform this act of helping someone die; then you should state it openly, just like Dr. Kevorkian did. The Catholic Church is one of the organizations that oppose the idea of euthanasia the most. In their official “Declaration on Euthanasia” from the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Franjo Seper says that “suffering during the last moments of life, has a special place in God’s saving plan; it is in fact a sharing in Christ’s Passion and a union with the redeeming sacrifice which he offered in obedience to the Father’s will”. The Catholic Church sees suffering as a gift from God, and that God wants you to suffer in your last moments before death and that your suffering could give you the opportunity to go to Heaven. In the “Declaration on Euthanasia”, Cardinal Seper also states that “it is necessary to state firmly once more that nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying….no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly….for it is a question of the violation of the divine law, an offence against the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity”. The Catholic Church clearly opposes the act of euthanasia, since it is an act against humanity to them; it is a sin. It goes against their belief that humans have a “right to life”, and it goes against “God’s plan” for mankind. Alison Davis was born as a handicapped newborn with spina bifida and the doctors told her parents to abandon her. However, her parents did not, and she states that she has lived a fulfilling life, and has graduated from university with a degree in sociology and lives a relatively normal life, despite her irreversible physical defect. She now works to defend the right of life to handicapped. In her “Right to Life of Handicapped”, she says that the “notion of ‘non-personhood’ denies the right of handicapped people to be recognized as equal human beings in a caring society”. She warns that the proposed legislation of the // de facto // decriminalization could put everyone of all ages with a physical disability at risk for euthanasia. You can see her point that we cannot devalue the life of a person with a physical disability just because they are disabled. Don’t they have the right to live, since they could live a fulfilling life, just as she has? She wants the handicapped to have the “right to life”, and to simply let these people be treated as human beings and to have the opportunity to live a good life. On the other hand, many progressive countries have legalized “euthanasia” as a basic human right. One of these countries is the Netherlands, where Pieter Admiraal has helped people end their lives with euthanasia. Admiraal brings up the argument that “even societies which do not allow active voluntary euthanasia do grant patients the freedom to refuse medical treatment…they grant competent people the right to bring their lives to an end by requesting doctors to stop treatment, and doctors have a recognized legal duty to abide by the competent and fully informed patient’s request”. In Admiraal’s “Listening and Helping to Die: The Dutch Way”, he argues that he goes through a complex process when a patient requests euthanasia, where he consults the Catholic chaplain at the hospital, the family members of the patient, and other doctors. The way that the Netherlands treats euthanasia is not to use this as a way to rid of the useless people in the world, but to give patients the opportunity to die in a peaceful and painless way. Chris Hill was a paraplegic, who ultimately killed himself to end his suffering. He become paralyzed after a hang-gliding accident, and depicted himself as unhappy in his article “The Note”. He wanted to die, and he was of sound mind and had been living as a paraplegic for a number of years before killing himself. One could see that he was unhappy, that he was not able to do what he loved – which was to be outdoors. He lost control of his body, and he could not take care of himself. “I accepted death – embraced it eagerly, in fact, after so many months of the nightmare – without fear or regret. I had a full, rewarding and successful life by any measure, and in my last weeks I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d always wanted to do but hadn’t yet done”. Chris Hill thought he had lived a fulfilling life, so why do people condemn his notion to die? Why should his suffering be prolonged more than he could bear? Dr. Kevorkian, the infamous “Doctor Death” has brought the issue of euthanasia to the forefront in America. He helped over 100 patients die, by creating a machine that could help these patients kill themselves, so they would be performing the euthanasia, not himself. Many people see him as a reflection of the evil Dr. Mengele, who cruelly experimented on Jews and others at Auschwitz. However, I believe Dr. Kevorkian is not anywhere close to Dr. Mengele. Dr. Kevorkian had no intention to kill these patients for his own pleasure and experiments, which is what Dr. Mengele did. However, Dr. Kevorkian wanted to provide a service to people who wanted to die. He helped his patients die in a peaceful way, and did not mean to harm humanity whatsoever. I think everyone has the right to euthanasia, as long as they think through their decision thoroughly and are of sound mind when they make this decision. If a person is in a coma, I believe that this person needs to have a living will or advanced directive in which they state if they are in a vegetative state, that they want to be taken off life support to die. It makes me cringe when parents keep their young children alive when they are brain dead, because they are too attached to the hope of their child ever coming out of their coma or vegetative state. However, what do parents do if their child is too young to understand what a living will is? It is a slippery slope where it is hard to draw the lines. I know that if I was ever in a coma or was paralyzed, I would want to die. It is not that I don’t care about my life, but my dignity would be lost in that type of life. I wouldn’t be able to do what I love to do; I would never be able to get on a horse again if I was paralyzed. Shouldn’t it be up to the person to determine if they want their life to end? Sure, Alison Davis was able to persevere despite her disability, but every person is different! They have different experiences with dealing with pain and have different beliefs on their will to live. If America is a country where government is separated from religion, then why have we not legalized euthanasia yet? Is it because religion has such an influence on people’s lives that we are held back from having an option of ending our life if we please to do so? I would love to see America become more progressive, and if California can’t pass a law legalizing euthanasia, then there is no hope for the rest of the country. Euthanasia is seen as an “easy death”, however it is not easy in this world. Everyone should have the “right to life” and the “right to die”. However, there are major influences in this fight to let people end their life if they choose. Shouldn’t we be given this option? Dr. Kevorkian believed that we should provide a service to people who want to die, and he did this in an ethical and peaceful way. Other doctors who condemn his services but do their own “services” at night are simply cowards. They don’t want their reputation to be ruined. As John Donne stated, “and death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die”.