A Horrible Death

Imagine this: You are lying on a hard bed, unable to move. You feel nothing but immense pain all throughout your body. You are fed through a tube because you are unable to eat by yourself, and you cannot use the bathroom without assistance either. All day, every day, you are in the same room, feeling the same immense pain, doing nothing but lying there and moaning. On top of this, you know you are making your family pay a huge sum of money for doctors to care for you, and give you medicine. The medicine they give you, however, will not relieve your pain or suffering, but rather make you “live” longer so that you feel the pain for a longer period of time. The painkillers they are also giving you are not doing enough to ease your pain at all, and yes, your family pays for both of these drugs. Despite everything your doctors are doing, they know and you know that you will definitely die in the next few months or so. Your quality of life has been stripped from you, leaving you only to lie motionlessly on a bed and feel unbearable pain. The only promise of relief from your suffering is death. Death, which is inevitable; death, which will allow you to feel no more pain, no more suffering; death, which will allow your family to stop spending so much money on you. Death, which the doctors will not give you. They insist instead that you must keep taking medication to live longer. Longer life to you only means longer suffering and pain. Longer life to you only means a bigger burden to your family. Longer life to you is only absurd and cruel. Death would provide you relief; the doctors are providing suffering. You can plead and beg, but they will ultimately ignore you. And after begging and moaning and suffering and waiting for four long months, you finally die in great agony, slipping at last into the painless sleep which you so desired four months prior.

Is this how you want the end of your life to be like?

In the United States, euthanasia, the act of killing a patient or letting a patient commit suicide to relieve that patient from suffering, is illegal. The right to choose a sound, painless death is denied of patients, even if they ask for it. In 2013, a court in Ireland rejected ex-lecturer Marie Fleming’s ability to commit suicide after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, even though she stated that her life was reduced to “irreversible agony” because of it. Not only did it reject her bid, it also told her partner that he could receive up to 14 years in prison if he helped her die. So Marie was forced to live the rest of her life in complete physical agony, while her partner was forced to watch his love suffer every day until she died. There are also people like Tony Nicklinson, who asked in 2010 and again in 2012 to have the right to die because of his “locked in” syndrome. This disease made it incapable for him to move a single muscle in his body, which he described as “a living nightmare.” His bid was rejected by the British High Court both times, and, unable to directly kill himself and unable to ask anyone else to do it, he finally decided to starve himself to death. These kind of situations happen very frequently in countries that don’t allow death to be an option for patients who are suffering.

The United States should legalize euthanasia to prevent patients from going through unneeded suffering. No one wants to suffer for four long months in unbearable, unimaginable pain before they die. Patients should have the right to choose when they die and how they die. They shouldn’t be made to suffer. Many pet owners would have their pets killed in a painless way, or “put down”, if the animal was in immense suffering. This would be regarded as kindness towards the animal. The same, then, should apply to humans, especially so since the patients themselves are asking for death. Pets can’t give consent, but it is done anyway. The human patients are giving consent, and still it is denied to them. Keeping them alive is an act of cruelty, not an act of kindness.

Many people oppose euthanasia because they feel that it will lead to the deterioration of the sacredness of life. However, the Netherlands shows that euthanasia will not lead to a murder happy society. Every year, 3000 Dutch people ask to be euthanized, but that is only 1.7% of all deaths in 2013. Also, even if the patient asks for euthanasia, it is not guaranteed that she will be given permission to kill herself. Many Christians may have a problem with euthanasia, as they believe that God and God only should decide when you die. However, there are actually examples of euthanasia in the Bible. For example, in Samuel 1:9-10, it says: “Then he begged me, ‘Come over here and put me out of my misery, for I am in terrible pain and want to die.’ So I killed him,” the Amalekite told David, “for I knew he couldn’t live.”

Euthanasia should be legalized. Imagine the first scenario. Would you want to live in that kind of suffering with absolutely no way out, or would you rather have the option to choose a painless and quick death instead?

Works Cited
M, Morris. “10 Arguments For Legalizing Euthanasia.” listverse. Listverse Ltd. 12 Sept. 2013. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.
“Pro Choice Arguments for Euthanasia.” rsrevision. Rsrevision. 2015. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.
Angelotti, Julia. “Guest View: For Many Reasons, Euthanasia Should Not Be Legalized.” kcchronicle. Shaw Media. 9 Apr. 2014. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.