Euthanasia — Right or Wrong?

The morality of euthanasia has long been debated.  Views affirming euthanasia claim euthanasia prevents suffering by patients and prevents needless prolonging of life.  Views opposing euthanasia consider many things such as the error rate of medical prognoses and how individuals may eventually be forced into euthanasia. How Annandale Went Out is a poem from the perspective of a doctor who performed euthanasia on a patient and believes euthanasia is an acceptable practice. To the Mercy Killers is a poem from the perspective of a patient who wants to live no matter the suffering that may occur. Euthanasia should not be a choice available to any individual.  The rate of misdiagnosis is too high to play guessing games with a person’s life.  Euthanasia disregards the value and significance of human life.  Euthanasia can become a way of mitigating healthcare costs by insurance companies.  Last but not least, euthanasia is a slippery slope and bound to no longer be voluntary.

The doctor in How Annandale Went Out believes death should be an option for patients.  The doctor’s prognosis was death for the patient, claiming “the sight was not so fair.”  Medical prognoses often yield erroneous results.  Patients thought to be in a vegetative state are misdiagnosed 43% of the time.  Should a person be killed with a 43% chance of being misdiagnosed?  If every patient’s family chose euthanasia for a patient thought to be a vegetable, more than two out of five people that would have survived would have been killed.  Think of all the wrongful deaths because of incorrect medical prognoses.  Euthanasia may be a cheap solution for a family but is money worth the cost of a relative’s life, especially when recovery is possible, and the prognosis could be wrong? 

For many, euthanasia is not an ethical choice because the value of human life.  However, the doctor in How Annandale Went Out does not feel remorse and stands up to social expectations by saying, “You wouldn’t hang me?  I thought not.”  The doctor is so sure of his actions he doesn’t believe anybody will challenge his decisions.  Humans create, collaborate, share, feel compassion for one another, and help each other. Human life is very special.  Euthanasia disregards and rejects the clear fact of the importance of human life and instead murders the “useless” people of society.  The person referenced in To the Mercy Killers understands the importance of human life and how vital trying to survive is, “Even though I seem not human, a mute shelf of glucose, bottled blood, machinery, to swell the lung and pump the heart – even so, do not put out my life. Let me still glow.”  The person wants his chance of recovery despite the pain, “Even though I turn such traitor to myself as beg to die, do not accomplice me.”  He does not want to be killed even when begging for someone to kill him so he can stop suffering.