CASE STUDY 1
Physician Assisted Suicide
Jack Kevorkian, Serial Killer or Angel of Mercy? , he has assisted in over 100 suicides. He has either set up his suicide machine or called the “mer citron” provided some other means for patients to end their own lives. Kevorkian has now decided that it is O. K.
for him to kill other people when he considers it to be appropriate. What Jack Kevorkian try to do simply is to bring a age old idea to modern times, and to his mis-beliefs it failed. With so many “Pro-Life Activist” and “State Law pushing’s” stirring up controversy, it’s raised many a question. Here are few I feel are most asked.
A question always asked is, “whose life is it anyway?” People of faith will tell you the answer is simple, it’s the beholder, no one’s life belongs to Jack Kevorkian, especially to destroy as he sees fit. The question of “Should religion be included in final decision of doctor assisted suicide?” Human life is sacred and it is not for us to decide when we are to die.
Others will agree that it’s individual liberty. If a person decides that he wants to die, perhaps you or I do not think this is a good decision, but what right do we have to tell him that he cannot do this? A judgment that someone’s quality of life is too low is never an exception that allows people to kill others or themselves.
Another question raised is “When and how does the patient know it’s their time to go, how do we know they are stable to make that decision?” Well, it’s not really our decision, we cannot mother everyone. If a person decides that he wants to die, perhaps you or I do not think this is a good decision, but what right do we have to tell him that he cannot do this? Jack Kevorkian has written that euthanasia should be available to “the so-called mentally ill whose life circumstances are subjectively intolerable.” Some say a judicial determination should be made when it is necessary to hurry the death of an individual whether it be a demented parent, a suffering, severely disabled spouse or a child. The Iowa Law Review published a “Model Aid-in-Dying Act” (October, 1989) Under this model act, a child over the age of 6 could request “aid in dying” and if his parents refused to go along, an “Aid-in-Dying Board” could overrule them and grant the request. Yes, there are limits to how much we can do for people in need.
Sometimes we must make hard decisions, like when there are only two doses of medicine but three patients. In a class room study, we determined that out of 10 patients we could only cure 4. Surprised that 90% chose the same people all bearing the same age, race and job occupation. It pulls another question. “Are we capable of judging who gets to live and who doesn’t?” I wouldn’t think age and race would matter in playing god, it’s not like we are judging apples and oranges.
Should assisted suicide be used to for the terminally ill, intolerable pain or suffering with zero chance of recovery? They define “terminally ill” as meaning that the person will die within a few months without medical treatment, but if food and fluids are considered “medical treatment”, then by this definition that is not terminally ill? Anyone would die within a few weeks if the “medical treatment” of eating and drinking is taken away from him. Governor Richard Lamm of Colorado once said that the “terminally ill elderly have a duty to die and get out of the way.” What does it say about our society, when we say that we will stop caring for a person because he is “unproductive” or “no hope”? I do not believe that the value of a human life can be measured by how many machine parts this person can make or how much he can be expected to pay in taxes. We must engage in economic activities to live, but this is not why we live. The purpose of economics is to maintain human life; the purpose of human life is not to maintain economics.
A crippled person, a mentally retarded person, or an old person is no less valuable than a young and healthy person. The fact they contribute little to the economy and have nothing to do with their value as human beings. It’s the individuals right to commence to their beliefs, its ours as human beings to respect those beliefs.