What is Mercy Killing?
Mercy killing, also know by the names of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide involves having trained medical experts induce a peaceful death in a suffering victim, upon request. It is all done voluntarily and never forced. It is beneficial to those who are terminally ill, as a means of cutting short their suffering before an inevitable death and it saves a lot of tax money from cutting life support.
However, many other people out there believe that it is wrong and that life is sacred. Should it be the choice of the person who is suffering or should it be left up to the people at the church down the street from them?
This article will discuss both the pros and cons of mercy killing and allow you to draw your own conclusions and opinions on how this sensitive topic should be treated.
Pros of Mercy KillingRelieves Extreme Pain
When someone is already terminally ill and in an extreme amount of pain, they may wish to cut their suffering to their inevitable death short. That’s where mercy killing becomes handy.
Imagine if you were diagnosed with severe cancer and were told that it was too late to recover and you would inevitably die within the next year, no matter what you did. Imagine your cancer was so severe that even the highest safe doses of pain killers still left you writhing in pain. Knowing that you would die anyways, wouldn’t you wish to end your suffering?
Provides Relief From a Low Quality of Life
Sometimes people become severely disabled through either disease or accident, which greatly hampers and lowers the quality of their life.
For example, imagine that you were paralyzed in a car accident from the neck down. You would no longer be able to do anything you loved to do and would be confined to a bed for the extremely boring, degrading remainder of your life. You wouldn’t be able to feed yourself or even use the bathroom. You’d have to have someone wipe and clean you multiple times daily. Imagine how degrading and miserable that would feel.
What would be the purpose of living any more other than to burden yourself and possibly others? How could your family members not respect your dignity and selfishly force you to live just for their own benefit, even tho you were constantly suffering for decades afterward?
This is another time mercy killing would be able to help you.
It Is Conservative of Medical Funds
When you are sitting in the hospital on life support, you are sucking up loads and loads of tax dollars that could be relocated to help people who still have a chance to fight their ailment and recover.
If you really enjoy your quality of life as a vegetable or extreme pain, then sure, stay alive and the money to keep you there is worth it. However, if you’re constantly suffering and miserable and just counting down the days till you finally get the relief that death brings, you might as well save everyone’s hard earned money and give yourself the peace you desire and deserve.
Freedom of Choice
This all boils back down to a case of freedom of choice. Should an individual possess the right to decide what is done with and to their own body? If they truly wish to die, should it be anyone else’ decision whether they can or can not?
Where is the line drawn? If someone wants to have their physician inject them with lethal drugs just cause they are depressed, should they have the right to do that? My personal view is that the individual should have the right to die peaceful, for whatever reason they deem, so long as they have not had children. After they have had children, all of their children must agree whether or not the person should have the right to die. Why? Because it is not fair to bring someone into this world, make them get attached to you and then tear yourself away from them. This is just my personal view though.
Cons of Mercy KillingDevalues Life
Those who are opposed to mercy killing feel that it devalues life and makes it seem less important. The people who disagree with this practice are primarily Christian and believe that God made life sacred. They feel it is God’s choice whether each person lives or dies.
I completely understand this argument, but why do they feel it is their job to make it illegal even for others who do not share their Christian beliefs? Shouldn’t each person be allowed to decide whether or not they wish to take their own life and end their own suffering?
May Become A Way of Health Care Cost Containment
Another reason people are opposed to it is because they fear that someday the government will make physician assisted suicide mandatory as a way to contain health care costs. It really would not be a good thing if the government was forcefully killing people against their own will and their family’s will.
If I didn’t know how obsessed the United States government has been becoming with decreasing the population, I wouldn’t fear this would be a problem. However, I know what I know and this is a valid concern.
People feel experts in the medical field should not be directly causing death
Some people seem to be bothered by the fact that doctors and other medical experts will have the ability to kill other people — even if it is the people who they are killing who specifically requested to have it done.
I agree that something does seem odd to have people who are supposed to heal others instead kill them. Then again, someone has to do it, if the person really wants to be put out of their misery. Why not have the doctors do it? It makes the most sense, considering doctors can adequately diagnose if a person is terminally ill and they have the training to administer the lethal injections.
The “Slippery Slope”
People tend to fear the ‘slippery slope’ effect that occurs when euthanasia had first been made legal only for the terminally ill and then laws are later changed to make it legal for other people or, even worse, to be done non-voluntarily.
People fear that if it is made legal nation-wide, then it is just the first of a few steps in the direction of having the ill forcefully terminated.
, Short List of Pros and Cons of Mercy Killing www.ozeldersin.com bitirme tezi,ödev,proje dönem ödevi