Assisted suicide, is it wrong?

Before I start I’d like to say that I am studying medicine and that I have an exam tomorrow but when I stambled on this http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bPS3pZGthw0 on youtube I couldn’t help it I had to produce something and put in my blog. 

Note: I am not going to give an unbiased view, I am sorry. I don’t have time and I don’t want to put an unbiased view on this. I will put my own opinion on the matter.

I believe that humans are creatures of free will. Certain individuals have a stronger sense of that free will. But in essence all people are free to do as they please as long as their freedom of will doesn’t harm the freedom of others. We all have free will but, in a democratic government we are free to express that will and we all do so every day by expressing our opinion, wearing t-shirts with logos, posting on websites, writing our own blog etc etc. There is also another concept that we all have. Our body belongs to us and we all have autonomy over our body. Autonomy which allows us to refuse medical treatment in the UK if we don’t want to get treated. As I said before, I am doing medicine and the central idea of medicine is to never do harm, and in biological terms the Doctors there are causing harm by assisting the patient to die. 

In the UK euthanasia is illegal. But it is legal for other animals if they are suffering with an incurable disease that is going to cause them pain and suffering. Euthanasia in that respect is considered the humane thing to do. And in all honesty it is the humane thing to do. You are letting your animal die pain free without even realising it is dying which for many people (most people wish that they would die in their sleep so that they would feel no fear about it) is the best way to go. In all respects though, euthanasia of a dog is worse ethically than euthanasia of a human being. The dog cannot grasp the idea of death, and it cannot understand the pain is going to get through and in a paternalistic way, we humans make the decision for it. Maybe if the dog had a voice and could comprehend thoughts such as these, it would choose otherwise, but since it’s an animal we consider it better (I know many people don’t, but I do) to make the decision for the dog and help it die. For a human being that decision comes after complex thinking. That decision for the person deciding to die is a long process full of fear, full of anger, full of of feelings of injustice but from what I get as the centre there assesses their psychological state never a feeling of depression so that they are consciously making the decision for themselves. So for a human being it is actually suicide just pain free. And the assisted part is in actually providing the barbiturate which depresses breathing and senses so you are basically dying a very pleasant death, in which by comparison to the death he was going to experience it would have been terrible.

But it’s not just down to that. If you knew you were going to die and you had a time frame for your death, wouldn’t you want your death to be in your own terms? In a setting that you choose, with people that you love and die without experiensing all the horror that is laid in-front of you? 

I will repeat it. In medicine we are told to never do harm. But we are told to respect a patients autonomy. We as human beings know that we need to respect each other’s freedom. We know that we have to respect the opinion of others, even though we don’t always do. But I don’t think that in this case medicine in doing harm. Medicine is helping someone have a pleasant and comfortable death. I know that doctors have a legal obligation to extend someone’s life as long as they can, but it’s their decision. If they could they would do it themselves. I feel that the doctors in that place are doing what every doctors should be allowed to do, when asked. It’s the right thing and it really is helping your patient. And since it’s their decision I feel that there is nothing wrong with it.

Also I feel that there is NO place for Religion on this matter. Medicine is based on science and there is no room for religion. Religion is solely allowed to play a role in the patients mind and if a doctor feels uncomfortable with it they should actually refer people to someone else. In this case it’s not a case where you need to report it. The decision is conscious, the patient knows what he wants and he knows what he is doing. And quite frankly just like a religious person, Craig Ewert even though an atheist, died holding just like any religous person his beliefs strongly in his death bed.

 

-Andreas