Picture a scenario where you are struggling to make ends meet. You have a wife and two young children. One day, you suffer a stroke that leads to a comma. After months of treatment, you are declared brain-dead. Brain death is an unalterable cessation of all brain functions and may result from a long-lasting or extensive brain injury (Orfali 39). You have no insurance and the bills continue piling up. Does it make sense for the bills to keep rising and consequently burdening your family yet there is no chance of recovery? How much sense does it make that you cannot die with dignity just because your country’s laws forbid euthanasia?
My argument and support for euthanasia is, among other reasons, based on pragmatism. First, it is irrefutable that during patients’ end of life care, a form or version of euthanasia is already taking place. For example, when patients give orders such as Do Not Attempt Resuscitation, do they not, being of sound mind make a voluntary decision to end their lives? When they opt for terminal sedation, do they not choose to die? Terminal sedation occurs when during their last life stages, medication, nutrition and hydration efforts are ineffective in restoring or prolonging one’s life (Orfali 59). Therefore, the patients feeding tube and medication are discontinued. The patient is then sedated as long as they experience pain and they eventually die from the underlying disease. Since such ways to end one’s suffering are already being used, it is only pragmatic that euthanasia be legally allowed. After all, if society finds it perfectly acceptable to put down animals as a way of kindness to alleviate their suffering. Therefore, the same understanding, rationality, and treatment should be extended to human beings.
I also opine that to a great extent, death has always been, is, and will always be a very private matter. Apart from the closest family members, life goes on as usual for other people. Therefore, what right do other people, including the government, have to interfere with a person’s death? If one feels that their mental illness is increasingly predisposing them to other risks or is subjecting them to undue hardships, they should be allowed the choice to end their lives. One should not live a life of pain simply because their government is keen on upholding the right to life.
The burden imposed on the caregivers further informs my support for a global embrace of regulated euthanasia. I imagine if I suffered a mind-changing accident that renders me invalid. Without the means to afford paid hospice care, my mother would have to take care of even my most basic needs such as sponge-bathing or changing my catheter. While I love my family with all my heart, I cannot imagine the burden that I would place on them if I suffered an incurable, incapacitating, degenerative and debilitating condition. Euthanasia would not only allow me to ease the burden on my loved ones but would also give me a chance to die with dignity. Being in such a state would subject my family to constant pain and deprive them of deserved opportunities to live life fully.
There is no denying that the occurrence of death is a matter of when and not if. Therefore, when doctors have tried their best and shown that nothing else can be done, it makes sense to allow one to exercise their autonomy regarding their right to life. I have read about people dying as they wait for an organ donor match. I, therefore, believe that euthanasia, particularly for patients who have been declared terminally ill gives one the right to die while subsequently giving another the right to live through organ donation. Imagine a scenario where the organ of a 90-year could save a newly married first-time father. However, the laws of the elderly patient’s country do not allow euthanasia and hence, the young man dies. I do not see any ethical justification to deny the young man a new lease of life. The two people’s lives are, of course, equally important, but it is clear that one has a whole life ahead and, hence, allowing euthanasia would be increasingly imperative in such a scenario.
Opponents of euthanasia employ the slippery slope argument to demonstrate why the practice should not be allowed. The idea is that once voluntary euthanasia is allowed, a dangerous precedent will be set and may gradually change people’s attitudes to include involuntary and non-voluntary euthanasia (Orfali 148). It is argued that in an era where morality is rapidly declining, euthanasia may be misused by partners, family members, and healthcare providers. While this argument does, indeed, hold water, I reckon that once euthanasia is allowed, guiding principles, conditions, and regulations will be put in place. I am not advocating for people to be allowed the freedom to end their lives anyhow. The argument is that in some situations where a patient is undergoing unbearable suffering and efforts by healthcare providers fail to come to fruition, one should be allowed the right to end their lives and subsequently die with dignity.
Work Cited
Orfali, Robert. Death with Dignity: The Case for Legalizing Physician-Assisted Dying and Euthanasia. Hillcrest Publishing Group, 2011.
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