Whether The Use Of Euthanasia Be Legalized In Geriatric Medicine (Essay Sample)

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Should Euthanasia be legal?
The debate regarding euthanasia has been an issue that has generated heated discussions and formed a subject of controversy in many discussions. Controversies surrounding euthanasia are fueled by the levels of perplexity whereby issues such as the cessation of blood circulation, failures of the respiratory system, and damaged internal organs are no longer the cause of clinical deaths. Other than such complexities, the fact that medical technologies such as artificial respirators and Intensive care unit (ICU) equipment enable people to continue operating artificially raises another question as for when is a person completely regarded as clinically dead. Asking how euthanasia came into existence does not entail seeking answers to simple causal explanations, but rather it involves the search for the deeper significance revolving around this medical phenomenon. Equally polarizing is the question as to who should be responsible for making decisions involving life death and life. Providing answers to the above questions depends on arguments as to whether euthanasia should be made legal or not.
Factors that make medical hastening of death a contemporary way of causing is not merely that the manner and time of causing death depend on human will. If that were the case, medical hastening of death would not be differentiated from suicide. Unlike euthanasia that involves conducting a routinized response to a medical problem if the patient suffers from a fatal illness, suicide is an astonishing act that occurs under extraordinary circumstances (Anderson (a)). For this reason, efforts directed towards the institutionalization of the medical hastening of death and subsequent attempts to legalize the practice is a significant development in the current era of advanced health.
Medicine has frequently discussed the use of euthanasia especially in geriatric medicine which is the management of older people. In some instances, the old face lots of pain and struggles in their advanced ages and not even the geriatric physicians do not have the ability to absolve them of such suffering. Active euthanasia refers to the intervention employed deliberately to end an individual’s life (Anderson (b)). The sole purpose of such techniques is to relieve a person of pain and suffering, and this has been employed with the elderly and terminally ill patients. Michael Health provides a commentary asserting that people should appreciate the necessity of the right to die. As such, several states have come to pass a law that allows physicians to provide lethal doses to end lives of patients with terminal conditions (Health). This should however not be allowed because of several reasons to be discussed in this paper.
California is the fifth state in the USA to pass a law that permits the use of euthanasia to relieve their elderly patients of pain through a quick death. The condition of this treatment is that a patient has to be terminally ill, in lots of pain and most importantly be mentally competent. The support for this approach is increasing, and many more states are coming on board with the law. This points to the question as to whether or not the use of euthanasia should be legalized. This paper functions therefore to provide the reasons as to why such measures should be disregarded in medicine. Firstly, physicians have been charged with the responsibility of saving lives and not ending them. The use of euthanasia is considered to be “assisted suicide” and even though it is to provide peace and quiet for troubled souls in the medical wards, it is not right and most importantly, ethical.
The culture of the contemporary society does not allow any one soul to take his or her life. It goes against the universal values and norms that are upheld by religious individuals. Murder has a clear definition which is taking another person’s life (Anderson (b)). In recorded history, there has been no instance which allows another man to take the life of another. Mercy killing or the so-called assisted suicide is no different from murder considering that the doctor perpetrates the killing. No religion accommodates murder. For example, the Catholics believe that God is the only one with the power over life hence it is not the place of man to end his or her life.
Mercy killing might be seen as beneficial to the individual in the sense that it allows them to lull their constant pain because of the terminal illness (Health). The advocates of this method of killing assert that people have the right to choose to end their lives but the truth is that it is controversial. Assisted suicide is just like the typical suicide. An individual at the top of the roof seeking to end his or her life should, therefore, be allowed to end one’s life because he or she aims to end his or her suffering. Assisted suicide is the same as a police officer going up on the roof and push the individual to the ground or even shooting him to give him a head start to hell or heaven.
Legalizing the use of euthanasia in geriatric medicine will be like sending a message to the whole world that life is no longer worth living (Anderson (b)). Advocates for its legalization claim that it is a way through which people could die with their dignity intact which should not be the case (Anderson (a)). The only acceptable way to die is to battle through life regardless of one’s situation. From another perspective, taking such shortcuts in life is being selfish particularly when loved ones are involved. So many individuals are going through hard times like those with disabilities and life-threatening conditions, and they will come to believe that there are better off dead than alive. Legalizing euthanasia is similar to sealing the deaths of so many people in the world with a death wish. Death is to be feared and avoided at all costs and should not be embraced like such.
Fighting to live is essential to life, and those who advocate for the abolishment of such law do not care less for their loved ones. In the contemporary society, medicine technology is advanced to the extent that nobody has to die in pain. There are pain medications that are meant to reduce pain to manageable levels allowing those with terminal conditions to live longer and fulfilling lives. It is in rare cases that such medications are not enough to soothe the pain. Regardless, sedation has been co...