Again, my rebuttal to this argument is that proponents of euthanasia are not trigger-happy killers. Any legal request for euthanasia would have to be processed for validity by qualified doctors. Any signs of depression would be properly treated and a reasonable "cooling-off period" be provided to the patients to change their minds. Only a bare-minimum number of patients who are suffering without any chance of relief and only those who persistently wish to end their lives to avoid an undignified death would qualify for euthanasia.
It is also argued that advances in modern medicine have made it possible to alleviate all kinds of pain; hence there is no reason why any seriously ill person should suffer unbearable pain. This is a sweeping argument that is again not supported by solid facts. There are many terminal conditions such as full-blown aids and several forms of cancer in which no amounts of medicines can alleviate the nausea and pain. Furthermore, how can someone else decide that the suffering of an individual is "bearable" except the person himself?
Finally, the anti-euthanasia lobby argues that people, who want to end their lives, have the choice of committing suicide rather than asking for euthanasia. This is obviously a cruel line of reasoning, as terminally...
Many of them desire a pain-less dignified end of their lives and legalized euthanasia provides them with such a choice.
Conclusion
While modern technology and advances in medical science have succeeded in alleviating suffering for mankind to a large extent, they have also made it possible for prolonging the agony and suffering of a number of terminally-ill people before ending of their lives. Taking away the right of such people to make a decision about dying with dignity is surely an aberration in any compassionate modern day society. As we saw in this essay, the major arguments against euthanasia are unsustainable. We should all have the right to die with dignity instead of being made to suffer indefinitely at the end of our lives only because of the misplaced moral beliefs of others.
Works Cited
Moreland, J.P. And Norman L. Geisler. The Life and Death Debate: Moral Issues of Our Time. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1990.
Otlowski, Margaret. Voluntary Euthanasia and the
Common Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997
Young, Robert. "Voluntary Euthanasia." Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. 2002. April 15, 2005 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/euthanasia-voluntary/
When a doctor provides such information to a terminally ill patient it is called "physician-assisted suicide." Both "assisted suicide" and "physician-assisted suicide" are covered under the broad definition of euthanasia.
J.P. Moreland and Norman S. Geisler. The Life and Death Debate: Moral Issues of Our Time (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1990) 64-65.
Margaret Otlowski. Voluntary Euthanasia and the Common Law. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997) 3.
Robert Young, "Voluntary Euthanasia." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
J.P. Moreland and Norman S. Geisler. The Life and Death Debate: Moral Issues of Our Time (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1990) 78.
Euthanasia
