Legalising Euthanasia
Should people cheated death instead
of suffering? Euthanasia is the term of terminating a very sick person in
order to relieve them from suffering. At the same time, euthanasia can be done
under request of the person suffering, yet, there are times when the person who
suffers couldn’t make the request for examples, people in coma and paralysed
the decision to do euthanasia is made by the relatives, the medics, or other
instances. Moreover, euthanasia is mostly done to people who suffer from
incurable sickness, and most people would think that euthanasia is mostly done
to the people who suffered pain awfully, however, the statistics from USA and
Netherlands shows that “less than a third of request for euthanasia were
because of severe pain.” In other words, psychological factors such as
depression, feeling a burden, and dislike of being dependent are the cause that
makes people to think of euthanasia. For this reason, there are some countries
that don’t support the act of euthanasia because it is against the religion, it
is not humanist, and it against the law because euthanasia also called suicide
or kill. Nonetheless, the ethical problems of euthanasia and the facts that
supports euthanasia will shows why euthanasia should be legalise.
Euthanasia should be legalised
because of several morality or ethical reasons. In general, those civilised
people argued that the act of euthanasia or suicide should not be a crime
because they believe that everyone has the rights of their own bodies and mind
which is means that they have the rights to make their own decision to live or
to die. Moreover, they believe that forcing people to continue living and
suffering is immoral. In fact, the act of euthanasia is illegal in most of the
countries including the Britain. According to the 1961 Suicide Act, euthanasia
is consider a crime in Britain, and the punishment is 14 years of imprisonment,
to assist, aid or counsel somebody to taking their own life. And besides, the
Times (24 January 2007) stated that, according to the British Social Attitudes
survey in 2007, “80% of the public said that they wanted the law changed to
give terminally ill patients the right to die with a doctor’s help.” And at the
same time, in the same survey, it stated, “45% supported giving patients of
non-terminal illnesses the option of euthanasia. And a majority opposed to
relatives being involved in patient’s death.” As the matter of facts that
forcing people to continue living and suffering is immoral and against human
rights, the act of euthanasia should be allowed and legalised.
Furthermore, euthanasia should be
allowed and legalise because of the logical facts of the act of euthanasia. First
of all, as it mentioned in the paragraph above, people have the rights to
control their own bodies, mind, and life. As it was stated in The Independent
(March, 2002), “in cases where there are no dependants who might exert
pressure way or the other, the right of the individual to choose should be paramount.
So long as the patient is lucid, and his or her intent is clear beyond doubt,
here need be no further question.” Second of all, death is a private matters,
and if it is not harmful to others the state and other people have no right to
interfere. As an example, if an action promotes the best interest of everyone
concerned and violates no one’s rights then that action is morally acceptable,
and which is means, euthanasia is morally acceptable because euthanasia
promotes the best interests of everyone involved and it violae’s no one’s rights.
And last but not least, euthanasia could be necessary for the fair
distribution of health resources. For instance, in some countries, there is a
lack of health resources and sometimes some people who are ill of sickness that
can be cured can’t get the fast access and treatment because all the equipments
are being use to the person whom the sickness can’t be cured. And thus, by
allowing some people to commit euthanasia help people who are in needs and want
to stay alive from the valuable resources. Therefore, the act of euthanasia shouldn’t be banned and illegal
because this act affects the society positively and people live and death is
their own rights to choose.
To conclude, as a human being,
people would prefer end their own life in dignity and painless rather than
suffering and waiting until the time to come. At the same time, killing people
under request or because of helping people to relieve their suffering does not
count as crime, because they do something bad for good. Therefore, euthanasia
should be legalise because it doesn’t affects other people, it does not against
human rights, and it is an individual meters to make their own decisions.
Work Cited
BBC - Ethics - Euthanasia: Ethical problems of euthanasia. (n.d.). BBC - Homepage. Retrieved May 16, 2012, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/overview/problems.shtml
BBC - Ethics - Euthanasia: Pro-euthanasia arguments. (n.d.). BBC - Homepage. Retrieved May 16, 2012, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/infavour/infavour_1.shtml
