Euthanasia — Right or Wrong?

Euthanasia, no doubt, is much less costly than trying to recover an individual from a seriously debilitating disease or condition.  Insurance companies will find euthanasia as means of not spending money on recovery or emergency room and intensive care service.  Insurance companies will have contractual means to force an individual into choosing euthanasia once it is an accepted practice.  The insurance company can refuse to pay for care and give the patient no other option but death.  Death panels in Canada are a prime example.  A board of individuals can decide if a person will cost too much to treat.  If the person costs too much to treat, passive euthanasia will be performed and shortly after, the individual will die.  This usually occurs by taking away food or water and allowing the person to die from starvation or dehydration.  This is morally and ethically wrong in many ways.  A person’s life is much more valuable than a few thousand dollars a big corporate insurance company will have to spend on a recovery or rehabilitation process.  When death panels are in place, families must fight for the lives of their relatives, sometimes forced to seek legal remedies.

Euthanasia will follow a slippery slope, as abortion has.  Thirty years ago, the abortion movement claimed abortions would only be used for the mother’s survival and health.  However, that is not the case today.  Abortions have become so acceptable they can be obtained on demand, weeks before a baby is born.  Euthanasia is no different.  People will begin to value finances and other trivial issues over life and ill family members will choose death over life in order to not be a burden on others in the family despite a chance of survival.  The more acceptable euthanasia becomes, the easier it will become pulling the plug on a person’s life.  After all, with it being accepted, who will be held accountable?  Euthanasia will become more prominent and become expected of people.  Individuals will feel forced into euthanasia to prevent from being a burden on their family.  Imagine an elderly lady in a nursing home her family is struggling to pay for.  With euthanasia being established and widely accepted, she will feel pressured into death because of not wanting to be a burden on her family.  Will she have the strength to resist what has become such a societal normality?  Most likely she will not.

In essence, euthanasia is immoral and should be illegal.  Medical prognoses are not accurate enough to permit doctors to offer euthanasia.  Human life is too important to allow a person to be killed.  There is always a chance of recovery and survival.  Euthanasia will no longer be completely voluntary.  Individuals will feel forced into euthanasia as human life is further devalued.  Euthanasia violates the sanctity of life by allowing a board of individuals to decide the fate of another on the basis of the cost of treatment.