Against Euthanasia Essay 3

Cherish The Value of Life

Euthanasia should not be legalized as it is a defiance to everything life has to value and

can be the self-destruction of our own species within limits. Euthanasia is an excuse to take the

easy way out to treat and care for sick patients and for large corporations to benefit financially. If

legalized, it will slowly expand the boundaries of the law until there are patients dying out of the

free-will of the doctor to benefit him or herself. Their will also be numerous cases of patients

dying unintentionally and without volunteering.

Euthanasia, if legalized, wouldn’t be only used on “terminally ill” people as it would

broaden horizons of the word “terminal” and cause controversy over how sick one would have to

be to have physician assisted suicide. Docters and others benefiting from euthanasia would

expand the privilege and start labeling patients as “terminally ill” and end their life. Nicholas A

Christakis, associate professor and Elizabeth B Lamont from the Department of Medicine,

University of Chicago Medical Center said, “Doctors are inaccurate in their prognoses for

terminally ill patients and the error is systematically optimistic. The inaccuracy is, in general, not

restricted to certain kinds of doctors or patients. These phenomena may be adversely affecting

the quality of care given to patients near the end of life.” This states that docters cannot

medically acknowledge when a “terminally ill” patients life is going to end, hence killing

innocent patients that may have more time to live. “Hopelessly ill” is a condition that is defined

as a persons whose quality of life is not worth living for, possibly being any sick person with a

minor or major disease, how many people would be killed because they are “terminally ill” or

the sub-definition “hopelessly ill”?

Euthanasia can most likely become a means of health care cost containment if legalized.

One of the biggest pressures put on the government in the past couple elections were the topic of

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health care containment costs. Euthanasia can become one of the loop holes in the government

cut downs to save money for health care. If legalized the cut back on health care can be replaced

by the “cure” of death. Take Oregon as an example, a law was passed stating legalization of

assisted suicide and later was confirmed that physician assisted suicide was going to be paid for

by the Oregon Health Plan. Docters treating patients under managed care are at risk of being

financially flushed by providing treatment, thus putting pressure on them to refuse it in any

means possible. Taxes can be reduced worldwide as the costs of running hospitals go down with

the number of inpatients they have filling up beds that could be used for people whose lives can

actually be saved. According to Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute he says,

“...drugs used in assisted suicide cost only about $40, but that it could take $40,000 to treat a

patient properly so that they don’t want the “choice” of assisted suicide…” This emphasizes the

fact that it would be financially benefitial to all sides of the party to legalize euthanasia to

improperly “treat” patients to be far more financially stable. This is wrong because people get

rich off patients dying due to improper treatment or no treatment at all. If legalized, it would

eventually become all about the economy and less about the patients.

Euthanasia would eventually become non-voluntary over-time. If euthanasia was to be

legalized it would give depressed or financially struggling individuals to have an excuse to

volunteer for “treatment” when on the contrary they could be treated and live their life. Simply

looking at the outcome of legalizing euthanasia in black and white isn’t acceptable, there are

going to be thousands of cases each year which involve other excluded factors that make it non-

voluntary; look at the Netherlands. Monash University states, “Under current law, the consent of

a patient does not justify a doctor actively hastening the death of that patient.”An example of this

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incident occurring is abortion, abortion was stated to happen only if the mothers life was in

danger and now is practiced with free will with cases of the baby only being a fetus. What

factors claim that voluntary euthanasia won’t evolve to non-voluntary euthanasia? None, we

can’t look at the issue simply we need to elaborate the dangers of excluded factors. Another

excluded factor is a sick elderly lady who has trouble doing basic daily life tasks signs a

euthanasia consent form, is this voluntary or non-voluntary? If we start accepting physician-

assisting death as a cure now it can later make patients feel guilty and cowardly for not picking

death as a cure as it would be widely accepted. For example, your veterinarian says your cat is in

excruitiating pain and needs to be put to sleep and you refuse, what would people think of you?

Now use the same scenario but its your grandmother, you would be expected to sign the consent

form as it would be the right thing to do. Patients of family’s who are financially unstable would

be pressured to take the easy way out and not put extra financial stress on there family by being

properly treated, degrading the value of human life. Euthanasia will eventually become non-

voluntary and phsychologically unstable or financially low individuals would lose their life

because of one bad chose; legalizing euthanasia.

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References

Shams, J. (2006, August). Update – issue 8. Euthanasia:

Lords reject Assisted Dying Bill, 62-67.

British Medical Journal (2000) February 19. Extent and determinants of error in doctors '

prognoses in terminally ill patients: Retrieved December 04, 2006 : Web page:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=27288

Vardy, J. (2001, January 17). Euthanasia a crime. Independent, p.28a.

Monash University (2006) Demonstrating your reasoning: Retrieved December 04, 2006

From the Monash University web page:

http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing/law/legal-process/2.3.2.xml

References: Shams, J. (2006, August). Update – issue 8. Euthanasia: Lords reject Assisted Dying Bill, 62-67. British Medical Journal (2000) February 19. Extent and determinants of error in doctors ' prognoses in terminally ill patients: Retrieved December 04, 2006 : Web page: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=27288 Vardy, J. (2001, January 17). Euthanasia a crime. Independent, p.28a. Monash University (2006) Demonstrating your reasoning: Retrieved December 04, 2006 From the Monash University web page: http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing/law/legal-process/2.3.2.xml