Should People Be Able to Decide if They Want to Die?
The issue of assisted suicide and euthanasia is a serious ethical question that needs careful examination. There are two extreme viewpoints concerning the problem under scrutiny. It is difficult to find the happy medium. However, both opinions should be taken into account while answering the question of whether people should be able to decide if they want to die.
According to Sydney Hook (1987), there are at least two reasons for which euthanasia should be legally permitted. First, there is no guarantee that a person, who is seriously ill, will not experience physical and psychological sufferings till the end of his/her life. It can be sometimes difficult for such individuals even to ask for the surcease of pain. Second, the patient’s family and friends will suffer too with the person. If a patient knows that his illness is terminal, he/she is sure that it is almost impossible to make some important discovery in the few remaining years or to do something that would be historically eventful. Such people are not greedy for more life. More than that, there exists an opinion that the costs communities spend to provide a number of services necessary to support the lives of those individuals who are terminally ill could be used for increasing the opportunities for other people (Hook, 1987). Eventually, the free-will of terminally ill patients to have an option of euthanasia can be accepted by society.
On the other hand, assisted suicide is considered as one of the elements of a culture of abandonment (Wagner, 2012). In this connection, one of the most important reasons for not allowing the legalization of assisted suicide is a moral question of the humans’ obligation to care for the weak and sick. Apart from this, a risk of abuse exists, since there can be situations when not only those people who request assisted suicide, suppose, the terminally ill, would be subjected to euthanasia. As a result, people can be literally killed without consenting to it. In this light, the question of legalization of assisted suicide should be examined very carefully paying special attention to restrictions of the law concerning euthanasia.
The problem of assisted suicide should take into account both points of view. Thus, it seems fair for a person to have the right to die. The knowledge of the alternatives of choice is the basis for this opinion. According to the ancient philosopher Seneca, “the wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can” (Hook, 1987). It means that a person should have a choice. The responsibility for this choice should be taken only by the one who makes it. At the same time, the current culture of abandonment can be changed into the culture of care (Wagner, 2012). Since mothers are taught to abandon their children (abortion), and husbands and wives are taught to abandon each other (unfaithfulness, divorce), a culture of abandonment should …
