Should Assisted Suicide be Legal?

There are many stories of individuals whom have had the struggle of choosing euthanasia left to their love ones. There are two stories that come to mind Terri Schiavo and Karen Ann Quilan. Many people know both of these women’s stories; however, was it merciful to end their lives or was it murder? Terri Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state which was caused by a collapse that happened in her home. Terri was placed into a hospital, and she was in a coma for two and a half months. When she woke up, she “regained her sleep-wake cycle but did not exhibit repeatable and consistent awareness of herself or environment (www.wikipedia.com).” As time went on, her husband and guardian, after testing and a number of physicians’ opinions realized that Terri would never be the same decided to take her off of her feeding tube. Terri’s parents fought a long fight to keep their daughter’s feeding tube in; unfortunately, their fight ended when Terri’s feeding tube was taken out on March 26, 2005, and she died. Another example is Karen Quinlan. She went into a persistent vegetative state from on overdose. She, like Terri, went into a coma and was on a ventilator. Her parents decided to just let her die, and after a legal battle the ventilator was removed. However, Karen lived on for another nine years in that state until she died of pneumonia in 1985. So was her condition really at the point of death? I think not. She died of an illness not of her condition, nor was she starved to death like Terri Schiavo.

Euthanasia should not be legalized it should remain illegal. I hardly think that having an individual starve to death is humane or helping them. Assisted suicide, as they call it, is just an argument of values; as well as, morals. As our text explained to us, people have their own sense of what is right and what is wrong (Moore & Parker p. 5 & p.421). Everyone is going to have their own opinions and beliefs on the subject of euthanasia. However, I do not believe, that my stand against euthanasia is just my morals. I believe, that what I have stated is has a premise, a conclusion; as well as, proof that euthanasia is murder. Terri’s husband was like a mafia leader ordering a hit; unfortunately, that hit was on his wife. Many people that stand for euthanasia voice that each individual has the right to die, but does an individual not have the right to live?

References

The American Heritage Dictionary Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company (2004)

http://www.califoraidindying.org/about/polling.php

http://www.euthanasia.com/reasonforeuthanasia.html

http://www.geocities.com/frankie_meehan/goodbad.html?200719

http://www.geocities.com/frankie_meehan/jose.html?200719

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia

Taylor. H. (2005). Majorities of U.S. Adults Favor Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide by More than Two to One [electronic version]. The Harris Poll, The Harris Poll #32

Moore, B. & Parker, R. (2007).Critical Thinking. McGraw Hill pages 118-119

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-110.ZS.html

http://wings.buffalo.edu/faculty/research/bioethics/court.html

http://www.assistedsuicide.org/suicide_laws.html

http://www.ca-aas.com/getthefacts.asp

http://www.euthanasia.com/history.html

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Quinlan

Moore, B. & Parker, R. (2007).Critical Thinking. McGraw Hill pages 5,8,&421