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woensdag 3 oktober 2012

Euthanasia: Good or bad.

I'm posting this because of some recent events within my family. My great aunt, the wife of my grandmother's brother, recently underwent a procedure where she was put in an artificial sleep left to die. Although, I did not know her very well, she was a very nice person and was a good friend to my grandmother. Has this effected my opinion on euthanasia? No it has not.

I am a proponent for euthanasia. I believe that terminally ill patients should be able to choose to end their lives if they want to. There are of course some limitations which must be placed, like the fact that the patient must be of sound mind, and the doctor can refuse to do the treatment if he/she does not want to (though the doctor must refer to a doctor which will do it). But the common arguments of why it should be illegal do not really make any sense to me.

I understand that people have this idea of the sanctity of life. I would mostly agree and will gladly admit that human life does have an inherent value. However, I think that western society has put life on a too large of a pedestal. It seems that we deem life so precious, that no one is allowed to touch it. Life is apparently so precious that not even the owner of the life can decide when to end it. My great aunt was very sick. She had been complaining many years about pain in her abdominal area. It tuned out to be intestinal cancer. When they found it, it was already in a late state and it was useless to try and treat it. This last, the pain was too much for her and decided that she wanted to be euthanized.

It angers me that there are certain people who want to stop this. Are they wise enough to decide when a person should die or not? No, of course not. Only the patient him/herself is wise enough to make such a decision of such magnitude. It seems strange that these people are convinced that they know what is best for the patient and this is never euthanasia. These people need to understand that not everyone shares their exact moral code and that terminally ill patients who do want to end their lives, should have that choice open to you. Who cares if someone half a country away decides that the pain is too much to bare and decides to end it. When you cannot sleep due to the constant excruciating pain, and death looms over you, then you are more than welcome to just do nothing.

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