Euthanasia

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:

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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

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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 right-to-die physician assisted suicide living wills research. Retrieved January 6, 2013, from http://www.euthanasia.com/hollchart.html

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

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