Anthony Arguello

10/18/10

BIOL 121

Prof. Diaz De Leon

Compassion or Cruelty? The Issue of Euthanasia

The value of human life is treated with high respect in the government, and any attempts

to alter it are consider taboo in today's culture. Murderers are prosecuted, attempted suicides are

illegal, and other threats to human life are met with government resistance. Euthanasia presents a

similar dilemma. Confronted with a terminally ill patient's request to end their apparent suffering

and pain, physicians might be willing to, with all other options exhausted, administer a painless,

yet lethal, dose of medicine in order to end the patient's agony, as well as their life. Such an act

is, at this time in most states in the US, illegal, falling under the umbrella of the term assisted

suicide, and even manslaughter. An act as morally challenging as euthanasia, however, isn't

comparable with suicides and murders. It is in this regard that the federal government must move

to make euthanasia a legal, regulated procedure, authorizing an act that doctors have had to

perform off the record for years. Euthanasia's legalization will also form a better structure of

dealing with and treating patient suffering and pain, as well as becoming the final solution, after

all have been exhausted, of a process that usually ends in leaving patients in unending pain.

A physician's number one concern is doing their best by their patient, either by curing or

treating their ailments, or, if such routes are impossible, making them comfortable in their end-

of-life days. By denying doctor's the ability to perform euthanasia, they are being restricted from
performing to the best of their abilities. They must observe as their terminally ill patients get

progressively worse with no end in sight. If the situation is desperate enough, the doctor or even

the patient themselves might take matters into their own hands, administering lethal doses of

medicine in secret, an unauthorized act that is highly likely to go wrong and make matters worse

without regulation. Even if euthanasia became a legal standard, such a morally taxing procedure

must be heavily regulated by a higher committee overseeing a doctor's operations. Richard T.

Hull, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and writing for the Yes

standpoint of the article “Should Doctors Ever Help Terminally Ill Patients to Commit Suicide?”,

puts forth the notion that physician-assisted suicide should be, if legalized, held to the same

scrutiny and regulation that life support suspensions are (93).

What leads some patients to ask doctors to help them end their life is the inadequate pain

treatment they've received. Pain medication is heavily regulated by many regulations and

assumptions. Doctors fear hospital punishment and federal drug regulation when prescribing

constant doses of pain medication. That coupled with the fear that a patient might become

addicted to the drug, and the end result is, according to Hull:

Far too many patients spend their last days without adequate

palliation of pain...[patients] have to beg for increases in pain

medication, only to be told that “We don't want to make you an

addict, do we?” or that “Doctor's orders are being followed, and

Doctor can't be reached to revise them.” If apologists for the status

quo fear that a slippery slope will lead to voluntary euthanasia,

then nonvoluntary (sic) euthanasia, the proponents of change

 already know that we've been on a slippery slope of inadequate

management of suffering for decades(92-93).

With euthanasia a viable means to an end, it's legal existence will undoubtedly lead to

medical education seeking out better methods of pain treatments, in order to prolong the

euthanasia decision as long as possible.

It is a doctor's job to exhaust any available option to treat their patient, so when all

options have failed, all that's left is a terminally ill patient still in pain. In the current state of

medicine, that is the end of treatment. A terminally ill patient with chronic pain must forever live

with it, and medicine to counter it can only be given sparingly. It's, in a way, cruel to tell the

patient to deal with a strife that is beyond toleration, to live a shortened life with constant pain,

and being refused the necessary amount of medicine to counter it. The entire ordeal is also taxing

on the doctors when they, observing their patient's degradation, can't offer to end their patient's

suffering, because they'd be, ironically, prosecuted and labeled as cruel. With legal assisted

suicide, the chain of treatments to terminal patients wouldn't immediately lead to an agreed-upon

death. It's still the doctor's duty, after all, to cure the patient. When all else fails, the patient

wouldn't find themselves in a agonizing limbo. Instead, they and the doctor can agree that

they've tried the best they can, and simply not continue any further. Far from cruel, this is clearly

an act of compassion on the physician's end.

There are others, however, that see euthanasia differently. Margaret Somerville, Gale

Professor of Law and writing from the No standpoint in the aforementioned article containing

Richard T. Hull's opposing viewpoint, talks about the impact assisted suicide would have on
societal values. Legalized euthanasia would lead, according to Somerville, to a depreciation of

human life (96-97). The problem is, from that viewpoint, it's apparent that the so-called

“sanctity” of human life has already been compromised. The issues of abortion and birth control

have been thrown to and fro in politics, and regardless of personal beliefs on the matter, the

topics still deal with the potential killing of potential human life, as well as preventing new life to

form. Hull even mentions society's complete willingness to accept, even praise, individuals who

attempt to sacrifice themselves in order to save others, who have no care for their life so long as

it's used to help another (94). On the same page, Hull also brings forth the fact that patients in

extreme pain can be put into a coma in order to avoid their chronic pain. What's the difference,

he asks. “I find it nonsensical to maintain that it is profoundly morally preferable to be rendered

comatose by drugs while awaiting life's 'natural end,' than to hasten death's arrival while still

consciously able to embrace and welcome one's release.” If all forms of endangering your own

life are taken separately into account, why not all forms of euthanasia? Not all cases will be the

clear cut case of a chronic pain-ridden patient who has exhausted each and every option given to

them, and is now facing their last days with agony. Some doctors might be irrational or

impulsive when performing euthanasia. However, if there are already heavy rules, regulations,

and entire committees surrounding morally charged aspects of medicine, such as the

aforementioned life-support suspensions, there's no reason why there wouldn't be said regulation

for euthanasia, if not more stricter.

Another legitimate concern Somerville brings up is claiming that euthanasia is humanity

trying to control death. “While [euthanasia] does not allow us to avoid the cause of fear-death”
she writes, “it does allow us to control its manner, time, and place-we can feel that we have death

under control.” (97). In essence, combating the stigma of death by determining when and how

it'd happen. The problem with this point is that, as previously mentioned, legal euthanasia would

naturally evolve to a last resort, one to a system that currently has none. Schools of medicine

don't want to be heralded as ones skilled in euthanasia. Of course, there is not much education to

it, as medical students learn all about what is lethal to a patient anyways. Instead, better

curriculum of pain management and anesthesiology would be taught, in order to distance the

euthanasia option, but not eradicate it. The issue is the patient's option to use it, not the use itself,

and the legalization of euthanasia will lead to an improvement in the very field of medicine

whose inconsistencies lead to these situations in the first place.

It is the goal of a physician to protect life, Somerville claims (98). Maintaining life that is

objectively in constant agony and pain is the very definition of cruelty, and by doing so, doctors

practically violate their sworn duty. Patients and physicians should be given the option to

maintain the high standard of life, by compassionately ending painful lives instead of cruelly

letting them live.