Is euthanasia fundamental to a civilised society? Well, people have been discussing the problem since the XVIIth century and haven’t come to an agreement yet, as the demarcation line between for and against the problem is rather vague. There are a lot of people who consider euthanasia as a crime, an act of killing. Though, there are other people who have many counter-arguments. Here we’ll try to consider both points of view.
The weightiest argument of those who consider euthanasia as a crime is, I think, that admitting it, we break the God’s Law. God has a unique plan for each person and when another man interferes into it, it means that he wants to act as God. That is why euthanasia profanes, according to them, both – life and death, rejecting the role of God in a man’s destiny. The followers of this opinion strongly believe that a person should take as a gift everything that God gives to him/her, including all the sufferings. If God gives death, a man should accept it, even if it is agonizing, he/she may only pray for a quicker death. Here a question appears: why should we have doctors and medicine at all? Should we cure illnesses? I do believe in God, and I do believe that He gives us as many sufferings as we can endure, but I don’t think that spiritual cleaning is a sufficient argument in favour of sufferings.
Now let’s consider a contrary point of view. People, who stick to it, say that euthanasia is a person’s right to decide for him/herself to live and suffer or to die. In American literature they even use such term as PAS – “physician assisted suicide” instead of “euthanasia” to underline the strict observance of civic rights.
As for me, I’m not pure black and I’m not pure white… I’m somewhere in the middle. Is euthanasia fundamental? – Hardly, I guess. Should a civilized society allow it? – I think yes. But no doubt, this process SHOULD BE STRICTLY REGULATED by the law to AVOID ANY POSSIBLE CHAOS.
It is a very difficult problem from a moral point of view as well. We surely have no right to decide for somebody, but one thing is obvious: we should respect the last will of a person. A problem of involuntary or compulsory euthanasia is even more complex, as in this case a person can’t express his/her will, especially if his/her life is maintained with the help of special equipment. Relatives and doctors are to decide themselves. And it’s surely the most difficult choice, but it should be done, as a life of a plant is not a way out when there are no chances for recovery.
I would also like to touch one more aspect of the problem – palliative care, i.e. a system of medical means that help a person to leave the world with dignity, not resorting to so-called active euthanasia. On the one hand, it is a “golden middle”, because the main principle of palliative care is a patient’s comfort, i.e. alleviating and relieving his sufferings and pain, when it is already impossible to save him/her from a fatal disease. But on the other hand, more than often palliative care means being in a half-conscious state of a dream. Is it really living? Hardly…
Concluding, I would like to say that euthanasia, to my mind, is a very difficult, agonizing, but sometimes necessary element of a civilised society. We should bear in mind that it is possible to resort to it only in extreme cases, because life is still above all!
The weightiest argument of those who consider euthanasia as a crime is, I think, that admitting it, we break the God’s Law. God has a unique plan for each person and when another man interferes into it, it means that he wants to act as God. That is why euthanasia profanes, according to them, both – life and death, rejecting the role of God in a man’s destiny. The followers of this opinion strongly believe that a person should take as a gift everything that God gives to him/her, including all the sufferings. If God gives death, a man should accept it, even if it is agonizing, he/she may only pray for a quicker death. Here a question appears: why should we have doctors and medicine at all? Should we cure illnesses? I do believe in God, and I do believe that He gives us as many sufferings as we can endure, but I don’t think that spiritual cleaning is a sufficient argument in favour of sufferings.
Now let’s consider a contrary point of view. People, who stick to it, say that euthanasia is a person’s right to decide for him/herself to live and suffer or to die. In American literature they even use such term as PAS – “physician assisted suicide” instead of “euthanasia” to underline the strict observance of civic rights.
As for me, I’m not pure black and I’m not pure white… I’m somewhere in the middle. Is euthanasia fundamental? – Hardly, I guess. Should a civilized society allow it? – I think yes. But no doubt, this process SHOULD BE STRICTLY REGULATED by the law to AVOID ANY POSSIBLE CHAOS.
It is a very difficult problem from a moral point of view as well. We surely have no right to decide for somebody, but one thing is obvious: we should respect the last will of a person. A problem of involuntary or compulsory euthanasia is even more complex, as in this case a person can’t express his/her will, especially if his/her life is maintained with the help of special equipment. Relatives and doctors are to decide themselves. And it’s surely the most difficult choice, but it should be done, as a life of a plant is not a way out when there are no chances for recovery.
I would also like to touch one more aspect of the problem – palliative care, i.e. a system of medical means that help a person to leave the world with dignity, not resorting to so-called active euthanasia. On the one hand, it is a “golden middle”, because the main principle of palliative care is a patient’s comfort, i.e. alleviating and relieving his sufferings and pain, when it is already impossible to save him/her from a fatal disease. But on the other hand, more than often palliative care means being in a half-conscious state of a dream. Is it really living? Hardly…
Concluding, I would like to say that euthanasia, to my mind, is a very difficult, agonizing, but sometimes necessary element of a civilised society. We should bear in mind that it is possible to resort to it only in extreme cases, because life is still above all!
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