Chaney 1

Jon Chaney
UWRT 1100-002
Professor Gabrielle Turgeon
19 February 19, 2017
Voluntary Existence
The topic of death is not often discussed in depth prior to the events of a loved one

who has passed. During the time that the people closest to the deceased gather in

remembrance such as during the visitation, funeral, and burial services. While many

succumb to death suddenly, a select few are given an advanced estimated amount of time

left to expect by their doctors. The others that are diagnosed with a terminal disease usually

are buying time and some relief from their symptoms through treatment, but the

treatments are not a cure. The treatments, procedures, and medicine options for cancer

patients are practices such as chemotherapy. These procedures leave the patient feeling

weak and in severe pain with many longing for death before completing treatment. In the

decline in their health, many terminally ill patients wish to conclude their lives on their own

terms rather than on the timeline of their disease. The desire of these patients to escape

additional pain and agony is not only understandable but, without question, should be their

right. Everyone should have the right to live their lives how they desire. This philosophy

should also extend to the right to end their own lives when they desire. Euthanasia, or the

practice of assisted suicide, is a basic right that deserves to be made available to anyone

who desires to end their own life that is facing an unfortunate guaranteed downhill battle

with no hope of a pain free happy life. Euthanasia should be made legal and accessible in

order to end the patient's suffering, decrease the financial burden that would be left for the

patients survivors by additional medical cost, and to protect the right of people to live their

lives how they desire, up to and including death.

 Chaney 2

Euthanasia is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as permitting the death of

hopelessly sick or injured individuals in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy.
One of the major dilemmas in these many cases would be to figure out which definition of

euthanasia you would like to stand by. This decision is discussed in Euthanasia and the

Care of the Dying by Sissela Bok in this article Bok brings the three definitions from The

Oxford English Dictionary (1971), Websters Third New International Dictionary (1967),

and Lord Moynihan, in the in the 1936 British Parliamentary Debates. In Boks article she

states:
TheseThese three definitions are representative of many others. They reflect

interesting differences regarding the following questions: Must the patient

necessarily be suffering? Must the disease be considered fatal? Must the patient be

close to dying? Must the patient have requested help in dying? And is euthanasia an

act of putting the patient to death, or can it also describe suicide and omission or

cessation of care? (Bok)

All of these questions are important to consider in whether to allow one to end their life and

to create laws protecting those that are sick while opening other options for them to

conclude their lives on their terms.

In the question of whether the patient must be suffering, the answer is complex.

Pain can be managed through different medications, and many physicians say can be

almost completely removed. The decline of health brought by terminal disease however can

notcannot be repaired. While a patient may be in pain and suffering that pain can be

managed but the right to take one's own life is their right. Eventually, the pain will no

longer be bearable even with the advances humankind have made in medicine.
To answer the question of must the disease be fatal for ethical reasons the answer is

a yes. In cases when the disease is not fatal and pain is manageable the patient should

receive psychological help in order to come to terms with their illness. The assistance
 Chaney 3

provided along with psychological help should also include pain relieving medication and

additional group therapy with those suffering from the same or similar condition. To

address the question of whether the patient must be close to dying. The patient does not

necessarily need to be knocking on death's door, but the pain must the great enough that

life is no longer desirable or the patient is no longer happy in extending their lives with

treatment for any reason they choose.

The question of whether the patient needed to request help in speeding up the

process of death the answer is an unchallengeable yes. Only the patient has the right to end

their own life. Request from others to end the patient's life against the patient's wishes

would be murder rather than assisted suicide. Euthanasia is the act of assisting a patient in

ending their own life. The assistance given is not denying the patient care but rather

complying with their final wishes and ensuring that their death is as comfortable as

possible. Care for the patient is necessary up to and including death. Every act should be

around what the patient desires and making their final moments on Earth as comfortable

as possible. Euthanasia is not an act of anger or pain but rather mercy to relieve suffering.
Euthanasia can also give you a better quality of life as one nears ones final

moments, this may be difficult to understand, but there are many articles and journal

entries stating just this belief. People have been asking the question of of how would you

like to die? as far back as history has been recorded if not from the birth of mankind. The

response to this question is a desire to die peacefully in their sleep or something to the

nature of a calm passing. Very few would answer that they wish to die in pain slowly on a

battlefield. The battlefield is not just in times of war but also in cases of terminal illness the

battle for life that cannot be won is equally undesirable. This question also brings up that

most people would not like to know when or how they would die which is not the case for
 Chaney 4

the terminally ill who know the approximate answer to both. Many patients in other

countries where this practice is legal have spoken on how their quality of life has increased

knowing that they can pull the plug when they choose. Knowing that they hold all of the

cards to their life puts these patients at ease, not worrying about how much time is left or

how much pain they will I be in. Instead, the focus is put on what they hold dear in life

whether it be spending time with family, traveling the world, or just going out with friends

to a sporting event or concert. With the terminally ill, this would definitely be an intriguing

offer to go out on ones own terms. The only obstacle would be to find a doctor willing to do

such a procedure which would not only destroy their career, but would also land them in

major jeopardy in a legal sense as well.

Dr. Death, or Dr. Jack Kevorkian, was arrested in 1999 for his role in voluntary

euthanasia and was convicted of second degree murder. Kevorkian claimed to have assisted

over 130 patients and served eight of his 10-to-25-year sentence. Kevorkian, looked at as a

hero by some famously said, Dying is not a crime,, which, according to

Statisticbrain.com, the public population agreed with 86 percent supporting euthanasia for

the terminally ill/ or life support.

The Hippocratic Oath is a topic that comes up very often on the discussion of

whether or not doctors should be obligated or not to perform euthanasia. One of the more

popular statements can be found in the modern version where it states warmth, sympathy,

and understanding may outweigh the surgeons knife or the chemist's drug. Sympathy being

the key word, and anyone that just watches the pain linger until that repetitive beep

flatlinesflat lines. The Oath also says I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a

cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the persons family and

economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care

 Chaney 5

adequately for the sick.,sick, which speaks on the economical standards the doctor must

acknowledge for each individual patient.

Monetary issues bring another major argument to the table for euthanasia and to

have the control over one's finances nearing the end of their life. Hospital charges for End-

of-Life care are more than $6,200 per day, if youryou are in critical condition and need to be

placed in the ICU charges can exceed ten thousand per day. With the average income level

just over fifty thousand dollars a year and the average length of patient's stay when they

die is almost nine days, there is no way that the average americanAmerican can die in a

hospital setting without going into extreme debt. This debt will finally have a sum of the

total bill once the patient has already passed. This is like a terrible version of dine-and-dash

where whoever is left is stuck paying for something they know will haunt them not only

emotionally but financially for years or even the rest of their lives.
The legality of euthanasia should include protection of those that can notcannot

personally give their consent, those that are depressed and do not fully understand the

ramifications of their actions, and those that are being manipulated by outside forces

rather than their own personal desire for assisted suicide. So many think, that even though

euthanization should be legal it should also be paired with in depth psychological testing to

ensure that the patient is in the right state of mine to make such an irreversible decision. It is

understood by many that the requirements necessary to determine the various stipulations that

should be both required and agreed upon in order to ensure the practice of euthanasia would be

ethical requires an abundant amount of time and money. Knowing the needed investment there

would be no way that a person could speak to someone on the medical version of death row and

tell them that due to monetary and time related issues it is just easier for us to just let you

rack up debt for your family to deal with, and for you to just painfully dissipate.
 Chaney 6

Works Cited
Bok, Sissela. bioScience. Euthanasia and the Care of the Dying 23 (1973):
461-66. Oxford University Press. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.
Euthanasia Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster. N. d. Web. 12 Feb. 2017.

Jon,
Your paper is well written and interesting, but it is just weak in terms of a research

paper. You didnt meet the source requirements and one of them is just definition. That

means you really only used one text to support yourself. You needed more than that to

make a solid, convincing argument. There are also issues with grammar that were not

smoothed out. You need to really work on your topic sentences. They should tell your

reader exactly what they will be reading in the rest of the paragraph and it should not

make assumptions about what your reader is thinking or asking. A research paper is to

inform.
-18 pts in paper, -5 for missed draft, +6 for extra credit= 83