Euthanasia: Killing the Dying. Why it is not the Answer

Euthanasia is the deliberate killing of someone by action or omission, with or without the consent, for what are claimed to be compassionate reasons.  Assisted suicide is counseling, abetting, or aiding someone to kill himself or herself.  For Euthanasia or assisted suicide to occur, there must be an intention to kill.  The present law does not distinguish between Euthanasia and other forms of murder.  The key consideration of Euthanasia is the intention to cause death.  Consent or motive (even of compassion), does not change the reality of killing a human being.  Euthanasia is murder, and it should be permanently banned from the United States.

The practice of Euthanasia and assisted suicide is an unwise and unthoughtout choice.   Many people desire Euthanasia because they are terrified of the possible consequences of their illnesses.  Most people assume that seriously or terminally ill people who wish to end their lives are different than those who are suicidal.  An early reaction of many patients to the diagnosis of serious illness and possible death is terror, depression, and a wish to die.  Such patients are not significantly different than patients who react to other crises in their lives with the desire to end the crisis by ending their lives.  Physical illness influences the motivation for suicide: this was known long before the present movement to legalize assisting suicide of patients who are terminally ill.  Medical illness plays an important role in 25 percent of suicides, and this percentage rises with age: from 50 percent in suicides more than 50 years old, to over 70 percent suicides of people older than 60.  Most suicidal attempts reflect the patient’s fear about dying, and the people requesting assisted suicide show an equal fear.  If the doctor does not recognize the fear of the patient as well as the patient’s anxiety and depression that underlie the patient’s request for death, the patient may become trapped by their request and die in a state of unrecognized terror.  Therefore, many patients who request Euthanasia are scared, and do not actually want to go through with it.

Voluntary Euthanasia is unnecessary because alternative treatments do exist.  It is widely believed that there are only two options open to patients with terminal illness: either they die slowly in unrelieved suffering or they receive Euthanasia.  However, there is another way, that of creative and compassionate caring.  Extensive research in palliative medicine has in recent years shown that virtually all unpleasant symptoms experienced in the process of terminal illness can either be relieved or substantially alleviated by techniques already available.  Palliative care has had its practical expression in the hospice movement, which had enabled patients symptoms to be managed either at home or in the context of a caring in-patient facility.  It is no surprise that in the Netherlands, where Euthanasia is now accepted, there is only a very small hospice movement. By contrast, in the U.K, which has well developed facilities to care specifically for the terminally ill, a House of Lords committee recently ruled that there should be no change in the law to allow Euthanasia.  This is not that there are many patients presently dying in homes and hospitals who are not benefiting from these advances.  There are indeed many having suboptimal care.  This is usually because facilities do not exist in the immediate area or because local medical practitioners lack the training and skills necessary to manage terminal ill patients properly.  The solution to this is to make appropriate and effective care and training more widely available, not to give doctors the easy option of Euthanasia. A law enabling Euthanasia will undermine individual and corporate incentives for creative caring.

Voluntary Euthanasia would give too much power to doctors. Ironically, voluntary Euthanasia legislation would make doctors less accountable for their patients, but it would give doctors more power. Patients generally decide in favor of Euthanasia on the basis of information given to them by their doctors: information about their diagnosis, prognosis, treatments available and anticipated degree of pain suffering. If a doctor confidently suggests a certain course of action it can be extremely difficult for a patient to resist. However, it can be difficult to be certain in these areas. Diagnoses may be mistaken and prognoses may be misjudged. Doctors are human and subject to temptation. Sometimes their decision-making may be affected, consciously or unconsciously, by their degree of tiredness or the way they feel about the patient. Many doctors could perform involuntary Euthanasia. This means that a doctor could perform Euthanasia on a patient even if it goes against the wishes of the patient. In the article "Dutch Death" by Mark O’keefe, the worry of involuntary Euthanasia is discussed. The concern for involuntary death is expressed in this way:

This quote reveals that doctors do commit involuntary Euthanasia. This proves that doctors are given too much power with Euthanasia. It also demonstrates how doctors abuse their power of Euthanasia. Doctors’ occasional use of involuntary Euthanasia is murder. Therefore, voluntary euthanasia gives the medical practitioner power which can be too easily abused, and a level of responsibility he should not rightly be entitled to have. Voluntary Euthanasia makes the doctor the most dangerous man in the state. Therefore, doctors should not be given the opportunity to use Euthanasia.

There are many reasons that patients give for requesting Euthanasia—pain, loss of dignity, and the desire not to be dependent on others. These factors can contribute to depression and suffering that leads patients to want to die. Pain is a factor in 30 percent of Euthanasia requests, it is the major reason for the request in about 5 percent of the cases. Pain can invariably be relieved if the physician is knowledgeable about how to do so. Unfortunately, advances in our knowledge of how to treat pain has not been accompanied by adequate dissemination of that knowledge. Physicians undertreat even the most severe states of pain based on unnecessary fears of heavy sedation. Therefore, if physicians received the knowledge of how to correctly treat the patients without pain, then the patient would not have to worry about living in pain for long or short periods of time.

Most of the indignity of which patients justifiably complain is associated with futile medical treatments. Doctors are learning to forego such treatment although patients are only beginning to learn that they can refuse them. On the other hand, patients are also afraid of being abandoned by their doctors while they are dying. There is a basis for these fears since only in the past decade we have begun to educate physicians that caring for patients they are unable to cure is an integral part of medicine. Doctors could use palliative care. Palliative care is an alternative to Euthanasia to relive suffering. Palliative care can be defined as the management of people with limited life expectancy, and of their families, where the emphasis of care is on the quality of life. This definition focuses attention at the end stage of illness, which may be quite long, and on the main importance of comfort of all kinds, but does not limit such care to solely terminal illnesses.

There are patients who find it hard to be dependent on others. Serious illness usually requires dependency. Dependency is hardest for patients when their families do not want the responsibility. A change in family attitudes, could modify the outcome in cases where patients wish to die. A 1989 Swedish study showed that when chronically ill patients attempted suicide, their overburdened families often did not want them resuscitated. However, when social services stepped in and relieved the family’s burden by sending in home care helpers, most patients wanted to live and their families wanted them to live, too.

Euthanasia is not the resolution in treating terminally ill patients.  Most patients who request Euthanasia are terrified, depressed, and do not want to live in pain.   These patients need to be cared for and consoled.  Patients often feel that the only way to deal with the crisis of their terminal illness is by death.  However, patients should realize that there are other peaceful and painless alternatives to Euthanasia.  Such alternatives would be palliative and hospice care.  Palliative care is a respectful and dignified way too die.  It will allow the patient to receive necessary medical attention, and it will enable the patient to spend time with their family and friends before their death.  Many patients who choose palliative care are able to work out problems and become closer to friends and family members.  Another serious problem with Euthanasia is that it gives doctors too much power.  It allows doctors to decide the fate of their patients.  In some cases doctors do not even follow the wishes of the patient and perform involuntary Euthanasia.  A physician had a clear moral obligation to his/her patients, to cure and comfort.  This "obligation" does not entail killing the patient.  By enabling doctors to perform Euthanasia, we are allowing them to play God.  Euthanasia goes against our morals and duties as human beings.  It should not be legalized in the United States, and where it is legal it should be stopped.  People rarely take into consideration how precious life is.  If Euthanasia were to be legalized, the already declining morals and ethics of this country would be further compromised.  Making it legal to kill is immoral, and it goes against our duties in society.

This was written by Gretchen Ptacek, a 17-year-old high school student.