A DYING PERSON IS A RISING MOON, WHICH SHINES ON ANOTHER WORLD.
Life and death are unalienable from our thought. For some people, death is a punishment and for others it is good. Life and death have always been an interesting topic for authors to write about, philosophers to form theories on, and for doctors to research on, and it will continue to be so, as no one ever really found the answers to the questions about life and death or as Mahatma Gandhi mentioned on an occasion “We do not know what is better to live or to die. We must treat both life and death in the same way. This is the ideal way.”
From the moment of birth human life progresses towards death. Every second of our life causes a slight, yet incurable wound and the last awful second kills us with a strong strike. We make a lot of choices that shape our lives but when it comes to death, we don’t have a say in that. When? Where? How? It is all predestined. It’s like writing a novel or making a movie but never getting a chance to plan the ending. But once in a while, someone somewhere gets a chance to defy all the rules and write their end.
In medical terms, this is known as euthanasia, which is definitely the polar opposite of Suicide, as committing suicide is not writing an end but quitting in the middle. Euthanasia is the practice of helping the person die because they are suffering a great amount of pain or because their dignity is endangered. In past, when wars and battles happened in open fields and ended with thousands and thousands of wounded soldiers, there were special military duties for walking through the fields and killing the wounded and this was viewed as an act of mercy.
A debate on the morality of euthanasia is related to a doctor-patient relationship. Should the doctor give poison to the patient, or not? It has remained an actual and unsolved problem for many years. Even today the question stands unanswered: Which is better for the patient who suffers from an incurable disease example cancer? when modern medicine is powerless.
What divides the world population into two opposing armies is the question: If there are any reasonable grounds which make euthanasia a morally justified act.
Arguments For Euthanasia
The people advocating this argument claim that life is not only breathing lungs and a beating heart, and that life is much more than a basic physiological phenomenon. Living for them is enjoying life, making memories, learning things, and going through failures and success. When a person for example is in a vegetative state, s/he is not living and thus should be helped in parting away from the world.
Some diseases such as cancer can be very painful during their last stages so it is claimed by a lot of people that it would be better for the person to have an easy death than suffering through all the pain.
Another reason to opt-out for euthanasia can also be the expenses of the medical service required to keep a terminally ill person alive.
It is seen as morally wrong to keep such a patient alive, knowing, that they will eventually die, after “taking” another amount of dollars which instead can be used by the society towards a case with the hope of recovery.
Patients voluntarily too, choose to let it all go at once instead of dying every single day with increasing pain and decreasing hope.
It allows them to reduce the burden on their families and set them free of all the responsibilities.
Arguments Against Euthanasia
Euthanasia is interpreted as something anti-humanistic and evil under this argument. According to the advocates of this view, God is the one who created us and gave us this life thus God should be the one to take it away. To practice euthanasia is to interfere with God’s plan and is, therefore, a sin. It is believed to be just another form of murder.
The main idea here is that pain is controllable and modern medicine can control pain. A person who seeks to kill him/herself to avoid pain does not need legalized assisted suicide but a doctor better trained in alleviating pain and that the right way to fight a problem is facing it and not getting rid of the people who have the problem.
The world has always been divided into ‘for’ and ‘against’, whatever the topic may be. But the truth of the matter is that there is no such thing as the “right way” to do anything.
