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With names like Dr. Jack Kevorkian and Terri Schiavo making international headlines during the past few years, the complicated subject of euthanasia remains on everyone's mind. But when considering the plight of the terminally ill and their potential suffering, is "pulling the plug" a matter of dying with dignity or tragically playing God?
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The Decision to End One's Own Life is a Fundamental Human Right
Machine run heart and lungs
Picture this: You are sitting in a hospital bed with a splitting headache that has been pounding nonstop for a week. The doctor comes in with a grave look on his face. He glances at his charts, looks up and tells you that you have stage four brain cancer and that you have just a few months, at most, to live. He explains your options- chemo, which has no guarantees and is painful, or just enjoying the life you have left. You choose to enjoy your time. Fast forward one month. The headaches are getting worse and more frequent, and recently you have experienced blackouts and fainting spells. A week later you are in the hospital, brain dead, hooked up to a heart and lung machine which is pumping ‘life’ into your body because the tumor in your brain has gotten so large that it cut off your fundamental functions. Is this how you would want your last days on earth to be? Hooked up to a machine that is keeping you alive?
As said in this article, “Life isn’t just about breathing, it’s about living.” The person hooked up to machines in the hospital is not living, at least not in the sense of expressing emotions and experiencing life. In fact, if it wasn’t for the machines they wouldn’t be alive at all. Just because we have the ability to keep people alive doesn’t mean that we should.
People seem to face a wall when they come to this issue, believing that by taking patients or loved ones off the machines that they are in fact committing murder. However, this is not the case. It is a greater crime to keep these people alive with artificial and low quality of life than to take them off and let them die a natural death. I understand that it is hard to see a loved one die, but isn’t it better to see them pass peacefully than to see them hooked up to humming machines? Allowing someone the right to die is not murder. It is their life and if they wish to end it over being kept alive on machines their decision should be honored. If they are unable to make this decision because they are brain dead and do not have a written will, quality of life should be chosen over quantity of life.
- bloggernumber1
February 8, 2009 12:29PM
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Artificial Life
Once again, I have to say that I tend to ride the fence on this issue somewhat. I stated before that I do realize only the person going through the terminal illness understands the kind of pain they are in. But this is THEIR decision to make, and I understand what you said about taking someone off of life support being a better alternative to keeping them alive and suffering. I still believe that the decision depends solely on the patient and that the doctors and family should be a source of encouragement for the patient and try to create the best quality of life that they can for the person while they are still here.
Those who are brain dead is a different ballpark in my opinion. If the person is, in fact, brain dead that means that they in essence are no longer here. They cannot communicate, they do not know where they are at and they do not know who is in the room with them. In this case, when a person is that far gone, I don't see a problem with taking a loved one off of life support. It is prolonging the inevitable...and reality will do nothing but prolong agony and heartache for the loved ones left behind. But if the person is still sound in mind then I think doctors should do everything in their power to alleviate pain so that the patient CAN spend time with their families during their last few weeks of life. If this is not possible....the patient should be the only one with power over the decision.
- jitiac
February 11, 2009 9:26AM
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In this case, not so artificial
I also believe, as you have said, that people who are still showing brain function and therefore life, should be kept alive. I didn’t mean to sound like I believed that everyone that is on a machine should be taken off. There are people who need machines to do certain functions for them, yet they are otherwise functioning on their own. In these cases, as you have also said, it is the doctor’s job to keep them alive and as free of pain as possible, while it is the family’s job to spend time with their family member and care for them like only a family can.
I do not believe that we should go around taking everyone off machines because they are bound to die eventually, because in fact, everyone is bound to die. We need to enjoy the time we have. I just feel that if one has no mental function that their life has already dimmed, and machines are only keeping the body alive, not the person. And in this case it is cruel to keep them alive this way. But the choice to keep them alive really comes down to their will, and if they do not have one, to their family. And I know that it is a hard decision, I would not want to make it, but it is one that people are faced with everyday, and one that faces great opposition.
Actually, in some cases, there is a written will where a patient has stated that they do not want to be kept alive by a machine, yet their family will fight it, trying to keep them alive. While this is all done because they love their family member and cannot bear to let them go, the ultimate choice should be left up to the patient, it is their life after all, and their decision should be honored.
- bloggernumber1
February 16, 2009 8:02PM
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