Ok guys, I'm working on a 1500 word paper for my Communications class and it's due in about 7 weeks. I'm collecting information for my paper.
How do you feel about legalizing assisted suicides for people? Before you answer, please try to imagine yourself in the worse possible tormenting pain as if your flesh is ripping apart and no meds in the world will help out with the pain. You have 2 weeks left and you have already gotten several diagnoses from several Dr's. They can PROVE to you that you ARE going to die. No miracles will help. You WILL die in 2 weeks. You have a chance to take a shot to end your flesh ripping pain. Would you do it? How do you feel about legal euthanasia for humans? And can you support your feelings?
FF
I haven't read this thread, so forgive me as I'm sure I have covered points already made.
I am in favor of euthanasia and assisted suicide for terminal patients.
There is a legal precedent for one having the right to control one's own body, i.e. abortion, blood transfusions, etc. Granted it has not been established as an absolute right as yet. If I, as a potential father, wanted my wife to keep the baby with the understanding that I would raise the child and she would have no obligation whatsoever, it wouldn't matter. Basically I would be irrelevent to the decision making process because it is not my body.
If that logic applies, why can't we have the right to decide when we shuffle off this mortal coil? There is nothing more personal, and more private, than death. I'll be damned before some judge, doctor or nurse will "allow" me the dignity of death.
My wife's uncle and mother both died from Alzheimer's. I watched them deteriorate for years and years. They lost the ability to think and reason. Then they lost everything they ever were or hoped to be. Then they lost the ability to control basic bodily functions.
We visited them hundreds of times. I saw them sitting in a wheelchair with a blank mind and a vacuous stare with Muzak playing on the speakers and sitting under flourescent lighting. That's not life. That's existence. The person they were was gone, only the shell of a body was left, kept by impersonal strangers just doing their job. I knew my mother in law very well. She had great dignity and personal pride and hated the idea of living in a nursing home.
My wife's uncle used the last shreds of his mind to decide he wanted to end his life at his time. He stopped eating. So the doctor inserted a feeding tube. Paul pulled out the tube, so determined that it should be over. They strapped him down as if he were a criminal or some animal. It was disgusting and I am still angry at what I saw.
I don't care what the law says. When my time comes, and this fate or something similar awaits me, I will not allow strangers to do this to me. I will leave on my terms. It's my body and my death and I'll handle it when, where, and how I want.
