Euthanasia,
which means ‘good death’ in Greek, or otherwise known as ‘mercy killing’. Based
on these terms, it is easily understood that Euthanasia means a practice mostly
conducted by medical professionals to deliberately end one’s life prematurely
to prevent one from suffering. As mentioned by H. Kuhse from Bioethics News
(1992), Euthanasia involves the deliberate taking of a person’s life and that life
is taken for the sake of the person whose life it is – typically because he is
suffering from an incurable or terminal disease. Euthanasia can be classified
into two categories, voluntary – where doctors get patients’ own consent to end
their lives, and involuntary – where doctors themselves or family members of
patient decide to euthanize the patient without his knowledge. A survey published
by the British Medical Journal revealed that every 3 out of 4 patients with
Lock-in Syndrome and other vegetative states expressed that they are happy and
most never had suicidal thoughts. In 1989, C. Coons, an 86-year-old from New
York, whom doctors diagnosed to be in vegetative state and coma regained
consciousness after days when a judge granted her family’s request for the
removal of the feeding tube, which was her ‘life line’ that had been keeping
her alive. Data from the Remmelink Report (1991) showed that in 1990,
Netherlands, there have been 1040 cases of doctors actively killing patients
without the patients’ knowledge or consent. Euthanasia should not be legalized as
it denies Human rights of patients on wanting to live and gives medical
professionals too much power over one’s life and death.
It may
sound like a heroic act to help to end one’s pain, but should the patient;
though unable to express his consent, still wishes to live, it would be deemed
as murder to have taken away his basic rights to stay alive. Survey published
by the British Medical Journal conducted by researchers on members of the
French Association for Locked-in Syndrome revealed only 7% of those surveyed
wish for Euthanasia. Former Elle magazine editor, J. D. Bauby who also suffered
from Lock-in Syndrome after a massive stroke did not chose for Euthanasia, but
instead dedicated into writing his memoirs to let others understand the drastic
changes to his life and what it is like to be trapped in a body that is only be
able to turn the head minimally and blink only the left eye in The Diving Bell
and the Butterfly. According to BBC Ethics, people with special needs express
that they do enjoy living and that everyone should have equal rights and opportunities
to live a good life as well as the proper approach to people with disabilities
is to provide them with appropriate support, not kill them. This shows that
victims of such vegetative state do not wish to die and also with proper care
and support is still able to regain a happy and meaningful life. In most cases,
patients were euthanized with the consent of family members as members often sympathize
their plight and thus decide to ‘help’ them end their sufferings, thinking they
would be better off dead. In such scenario, the patient quality of life is assessed
by people not in his perspective and it denies the patient his basic right to
decide whether or not he wants to continue living. A study published in the
Journal of Clinical Oncology (2005) has shown that approximately 50% of
euthanized patients were suffering from depression during the period of
practice. It is also found that 44% of those suffering from cancer showed
clinical signs of depression when they requested from Euthanasia. Based on
these statistics, it makes people ponder over whether a person suffering from
depression can make a clear, informed and unbiased decision or only think that
euthanasia is the only solution. Moreover, if a patient changes his mind in the
midst of the procedure, the patient has already lost his right to change his
mind and once dead, there is no turning back. Hence, Euthanasia makes patients
lose the desire to want to fight to stay alive; letting them into thinking that
Euthanasia is the only option and in turn make patients lose their rights to
want to continue living.
Medical
professionals’ has a limit in their field of knowledge confide in the current
medical discoveries and diagnostics are done based on results shown by current
scientific technologies, thus there is always a room for mistakes or things
that have yet to be discovered. R. Houben was diagnosed in a persistent
vegetative state in which a range of coma tests were run to conclude that he
has no consciousness. However, 23 years later, in 2006, neurological expert Dr
S. Laureys found that his brain was still functioning almost completely normal
and that he had been conscious and aware all these years. CP Politics (2007)
mentioned that Gulf war veteran, J. Ramirez who met with a catastrophic car
accident, was scheduled to be pulled off from his feeding tube – decided by his
wife, as doctors’ prognosis showed that he would be blind or in vegetative
state. However, none of the conditions happened and Ramirez miraculously
regained full condition days after. This shows that patients can be
misdiagnosed based on the medical equipments used then as well as due to malpractice
by medical professionals. In a situation where a patient is wrongly diagnosed,
the careless doctor could have killed the patient before realizing it was too
late. Most patients trust their doctors fully, rarely doubting their skills in
medical practice and hence could mistakenly choose Euthanasia as a solution
where in actual fact there are other therapies or treatments available for them
in which their doctors are not aware of. Hence, Euthanasia becomes a dangerous
practice such that inadequate or careless medical practitioners conclude wrong diagnostics
that led patients into ending their life prematurely.
Since
medical professionals are the only ones to be able to practice Euthanasia, else
it will be categorized as murder and this give doctors power over others to be
able to decide patients’ life and death. This is especially dangerous as
unethical doctors are able to play ‘God’ and have the rights to kill patients. According
to the Remmelink Report (1991), during 1990 in Netherlands, there were an
appalling number of 4941 cases of doctors practicing Euthanasia by
administering lethal morphine overdose without the patients’ explicit consent. BBC
News (2002) reported that former General Practitioner (GP) labeled Britain’s
worst serial killer, H. Shipman, had killed at least 215 of his patients by
injecting lethal dosages of heroin into patients. In 2006, New Jersey nurse and
serial killer, Cullen claimed to kill the ‘very sick’ and elderly out of
compassion using lethal doses of hard-to-trace medications. American
pathologist and Euthanasia activist, J. Kevorkian also infamously known as Dr.
Death, provided ‘death counseling’ to patients and practiced Euthanasia with
130 terminally ill people between 1990 and 1998 using Euthanasia devices which
he invented. According to a report by the Detroit Free Press, 60% of the
patients whom Kevorkian performed Euthanasia on were not terminally ill. The
report further asserted that Kevorkian's death counseling was too brief with at
least 19 patients dying less than 24 hours after first meeting him and lacked a
psychiatric exam in at least 19 cases; 5 of which involved people with
histories of depression. In a CNN programme, Anderson Cooper 360°, Cooper asked
if Kevorkian claims that doctors play God all the time to which he agreed and
replied anytime one interferes with a natural process, he is playing God. These
professionals went astray from their initial purpose of bringing health back to
patients and help patients into shortening their life instead. Euthanasia gives
them unnecessary power to be able to control someone else’s life which ‘shaped’
so many serial killers out there under the guise of helping people end their
miseries. In the Hippocratic Oath that medical professionals in the past would
recite, mentioned that “I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor
suggest any such counsel; and in like manner.” However, Euthanasia has already
betrayed the very ancient fundamentals of the healing profession, allowing them
to play ‘God’.
In a
nutshell, Euthanasia should not be legalized because it deny Human rights and
give medical professionals too much a power to determine people’s life and
death. Laws and policies should be instilled to protect vulnerable members of
the society against abuse of such practice and preventing them from thinking
that painless dying is their only way out. Moreover, Euthanasia may be seen as
a degrading step in the medical world as it does not promote medical
advancement but instead creates an environment where people take the
easy-way-out to diseases rather than finding alternative methods of cure and
treatment.
References:
16 good reasons why legalised euthanasia is not good for
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BBC - Ethics - Euthanasia: Anti-euthanasia arguments.
(n.d.). BBC - Homepage. Retrieved January 6, 2013, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/against/against_1.shtml#section_5
BBC NEWS | Health | Shipman 'killed 215 patients'. (2002,
July 19). BBC News - Home. Retrieved January 6, 2013, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2135604.stm
Euthanasia Fact Sheet | The World Federation of Right to Die
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Retrieved January 6, 2013, from http://www.worldrtd.net/es/euthanasia-fact-sheet
Euthanasia – Case Studies. (n.d.). rsrevision.com. Retrieved
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Euthanasia: Patients locked in bodies 'happy, do not want to
die' | Mail Online. (2011, February 24). Home | Mail Online. Retrieved January
6, 2013, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1360051/Euthanasia-Patients-locked-bodies-happy-want-die.html
Man Set to Be Euthanized Regains Consciousness. (2007, June
28). Christian News, The Christian Post. Retrieved January 6, 2013, from http://www.christianpost.com/news/man-set-to-be-euthanized-regains-consciousness-28210/
Nurse Handed 11 Life Sentences for “Mercy Killings”. (2006,
March 2). LifeSiteNews Mobile | Home Page. Retrieved January 6, 2013, from http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive//ldn/2006/mar/06030208
Pollard, B. (1998). HUMAN RIGHTS AND EUTHANASIA. Southern
Cross Bioethics Institute. Retrieved January 6, 2013, from http://www.bioethics.org.au/Resources/Online%20Articles/Other%20Articles/Human%20rights%20and%20euthanasia.pdf
Remmelink Report. (n.d.). Euthanasia suicide mercy-killing
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Rom Houben: Patient trapped in a 23-year 'coma' was
conscious all along | Mail Online. (2009, November 23). Home | Mail Online.
Retrieved January 6, 2013, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230092/Rom-Houben-Patient-trapped-23-year-coma-conscious-along.html
The Hippocratic Oath. (n.d.). Northern Regional Medical
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Video: Dr. Kevorkian on physician-assisted suicide –
Anderson Cooper 360 - CNN.com Blogs. (2010, April 15). Anderson Cooper 360 -
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