Euthanasia
Over the years, the practice of physician
assisted suicide, affectionately know
as euthanasia, has evolved into one of
the biggest social issues in the United
States and the World. There have
been many controversies over whether or not
euthanasia is justified. In some
places in the United States, euthanasia is
considered murder (Jussim 47). It
is then treated as a murder case and murder
penalties are used. There has
been a whole change in euthanasia over the
centuries, but it still serves the
same purpose. Euthanasia or assisted suicide
in Greek means "easy death".
When broken down, it means the process of
one being euthanized, which means
to kill without pain. The process of
euthanasia has actually been practiced
for thousands of years, rooting all the
way back to the ancient Egyptians.
They practiced euthanasia in all sorts of
ways. A good example of this is
when somebody was suffering from a terminal
disease or a gaping, festering
wound, or even when an appendage or limb was
severed off they would put the
victim to sleep using a natural poison called
ether. Using a rod, they pulled
the victims brain out through the nose, killing
the victim (Jussim 53).
Euthanasia was then brought up again in the medieval
times. When the person
was ill with any type of disease that could not be
treated, or what is called
a terminal illness, a poison was put in the cup of
the victim. The victim
would then administer the drug himself, clearing the
person who put the
poison in the drink of any wrongdoing. This poison would put
the person to
sleep, into a coma. Then, about ten minutes later, a person with a
cover over
his head so he could remain anonymous, came in and stabbed the victim
through
the heart. The victim supposedly felt no pain (Jussim 61). In the
United
States today when somebody wants to use euthanasia as a form of
dying, a
physician is called in to administer the drug. Physician
aid-in-dying is
assistance by a qualified medical practitioner in
implementing a patient's
considered wish to end his or her own life, usually
by means of lethal
injection. In the Netherlands, the practice is an
injection to render the
patient comatose, followed by a second injection
called potassium phosphate. In
cases where the patient takes the lethal drug,
currently 10g of pentobarbitone,
the doctor is present in 20% of the cases.
However where death does not occur
within 12 hours, the doctor is on hand to
administer a second drug to accelerate
death, rather than allowing the
patient the indignity of lying in a coma for up
to four days, waiting for
death to occur (McCuen 81). Objections that the
legalization of the practice
would be open to abuse are not sustained by close
examination of data.
Patients are already "eased into death" with
morphine under the euphemistic
doctrine of "double effect". Published
figures suggest that ethical criteria
in the Netherlands are similar to those
already practiced in the United
States. Legal safeguards for the various
situations have been thoroughly
prepared by legal researchers in draft
legislation. Trends show that the
practice will continue whether or not it is
regulated by the legislation
(McCuen 118). Although the possibility of
physician-assisted suicide is
welcome news to many people who may be facing the
prospect of an agonizing,
humiliating and long drawn out disease while still
having some physical
capabilities, it is of little reassurance to someone who is
suffering from a
wasting disease. The disease will eventually omit the patients'
ability to
commit suicide. Also, death by oral ingestion of drugs is far less
effective
than by skillful injection. A doctor on hand can make necessary
adjustments
of dosage for the patients' weight, condition, age, and history.
This, in
essence, is the Dutch argument, and although drugs are often been
made
available for the patient to take orally by his or her own hand, if and
when
desired and after due consultation, a physician is generally present to
offer
the technical support that a patient has the right to expect (McCuen
112). When
a person is terminally ill, his family might suggest the
possibility of
euthanasia, when in fact, the person that is ill can only
request it. When a
patient requests euthanasia, the first step is to try to
improve palliative care
in hopes that euthanasia might be avoided. The term
"palliative care"
means surgery to improve the condition of a disease. If
this does not lessen the
emotional or physical discomfort of the patient or
his family, doctors then
discuss the option of euthanasia, each having an
equal say in the decision
making process. Any member of the decision making
team has the right to refuse
cooperation in the case of euthanasia, but this
refusal cannot stop euthanasia
from taking place. The family may offer
spiritual input, but is not involved in
the final decision, nor can a family
member request euthanasia for an ill family
member. ONLY A PATIENT CAN
REQUEST EUTHANASIA. This protects the patient in two
ways: the family cannot
force euthanasia upon the patient and the family cannot
prevent euthanasia if
the patient insists on it (McCuen 127-128) In the United
States today,
euthanasia continues to raise many legal problems, such as in
cases in which
parents and doctors decide not to pursue drastic life-saving
measures for
children born with severe birth defects. An enduring ethical
question is also
raised by the Hippocratic oath, which requires physicians both
to relieve
suffering and to prolong life. The problem is intensified because
the
definition of death has become blurred. Formerly, a person was considered
dead
when breathing and heart action ceased. Since these functions can be
maintained
artificially now, a definition of death that includes brain
death-lack of
electrical activity for a period long enough to make return to
functioning
virtually impossible-is widely accepted (Baird 37) Euthanasia,
even though used
as a beneficial process for leaving the world, has its
downsides. In the United
States, euthanasia is a serious crime,
punishable by life imprisonment. Some
doctors are helping terminally ill
patients commit suicide-a so-called
physician-assisted suicide-without being
punished. One of these doctors is a man
by the name of Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
Jack Kevorkian, affectionately known as
"Dr. Death" was born in Pontiac,
Michigan on May 26, 1928. He has
gained notoriety in the early 1990s for his
crusade to legalize
physician-assisted suicide. Kevorkian graduated from the
University of Michigan
Medical School in 1952 with a specialty in
pathology but never settled into a
steady practice, instead spending his
working years moving among hospitals in
Michigan and southern California.
During these years he developed his ideas on
assisted suicide for terminally
ill patients and built a so-called "suicide
machine", by which patients could
administer carbon monoxide to themselves.
Kevorkian became widely know in
1990 when a woman in the early stages of
Alzheimer's disease used his
machine to end her life. The machine that she used
was a different one than
the earlier one that Kevorkian concocted. This machine
had two tubes-one
containing a harmless saline solution and one containing the
deadly poison
potassium phenophaline, that were connected intravenously to the
patient.
When the patient was ready to die, he would press a button in his
hand,
stopping the saline solution. The potassium phenophaline would then run
into the
patient, rendering him comatose. About five minutes later, the
patient's heart
goes into arrest, as a result of the poison. Ever since this
woman's death, he
has assisted more than 20 people with debilitating chronic
illness or terminal
diseases to end their lives (AOL 97). After several
unsuccessful attempts to
charge Kevorkian with murder, Michigan in 1993
passed a temporary ban on
assisted-suicide. Kevorkian was convicted under the
law, but it was overturned.
Both the law and Kevorkian's legal situation
remained unresolved. Kevorkian's
activities have frustrated the medical
profession as well, which is divided over
the issue of euthanasia. Even those
who are sympathetic towards Kevorkian's
avowed intent of allowing suffering
patients to die are deeply troubled by his
relatively short evaluation and
counseling methods and criticize his
oversimplification of the issues (AOL
96). There are only a few places in the
world where physician-assisted
suicide and euthanasia are legal and widely
accepted. Only in some countries
in Europe is euthanasia legal. These countries
include the Netherlands,
Poland, and Finland. In these countries, euthanasia
accounts for more than 5%
of the deaths (Jussim 78).