Euthanasia: Is it more respectful to end a failing life before it begins to fail or do we let nature take its course? - page 1
Keywords: Euthanasia - right or wrong
By crazy legs on 18/11/2006
Level: GCSE Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11)
Page Number: 1 of 2 pages: 1 2Is it more respectful to end a failing life before it begins to fail or do we let nature take its course?
When people are ill they need more support from family and friends than usual, however ill they might be. However, when someone is in a 'vegetative' state they have to have help from everyone who cares for them to keep them living. Whether having a drip feed and being paralyzed for the foreseeable future is to have a life is not certain.
I would rather be put to death in a painless way than have to have a nurse care for me every hour of every day. They would have to bathe me, dress me and do everything you do for a baby. Is that a respectable and enjoyable kind of life? We talk about people in third world countries having a very low, if maybe non existent quality of life yet they do have control of themselves. We expect that we should have to help the people living in these countries and cure their illnesses. Logically we can help terminally ill people in this country to get rid of the diseases and problems plaguing them if they wish. If we help a person to die if they want to, we make them calmer as they have a choice. We are giving them what they want and may make death less frightening.
However, some people might argue that its more fitting to have a life that ends whilst the person was trying to fight death. It is difficult to see how someone who is unable to communicate or to do ordinary things can be living a meaningful life. They have no way to change their life or to make a difference to anyone else's, except by extending the grief that loved ones would have to endure as they watch someone slowly die. If all you can do is lay there with no control over your body you might as well look forward to life after death, if you believe in one. To see what happens after you die is more interesting than doing nothing at all. Without faith, suffering has no purpose.
To be assisted with suicide is also more respectable if you are going to go into a vegetative state or going to die as your family will remember you as being happier. I
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