Argumentative Essay: Euthanasia And Assisted Suicide

How much value does an individual being really hold? Life, a miracle in the universe, took over four billion years to develop on Earth. If existence took that much time to thrive, why should anyone decide to end it in a mere second? These thoughts may sound compelling, but they ignore the broad range of in-commodities that plague humanity when its quality of life begins to fade away. While some people cling themselves to the endurance of terminally ill loved ones, others are finding righteousness in the act of mercy. In other words, the world is slowly realizing that there is an alternative to be considered -euthanasia - due to the practicalities for both the patient, and his family.

Assisted suicide, commonly referred to

There was recently an upsurge in Oregon after a 29 year-old woman named Brittany Maynard decided to end her life (since euthanasia is currently legal in Oregon) by taking a fatal dose of barbituates. Maynard had previously been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, and was informed she only had an estimate of six months to live. This made Maynard become an incredibly trending topic on the internet, exposing euthanasia and cases like Maynard's to a younger audience. Both her videos and news articles received more than 10 million views, making her one of the biggest advocates of the right-to-die law (Sebastian). In an article titled “The right to live is also the right to die with dignity”, Natasha Lennard, a freelance writer from the on-line ABC newspaper “Fusion”, asks “if an able bodied person can freely take their own life, why shouldn’t a person who physically cannot be prevented from doing so." It is important to firstly consider the commodity of an ill person; after all, they are the ones that have to deal with the bothersome pain of their health issues (Lennard). In fact, not only will they endure the progressing symptoms of their sickness, but also the financial wake of treatment. With the advancement of chronic diseases, there comes inevitable social pressures. These often affect a person’s psychological balance, leading to feelings of guilt, and perhaps shame, upon the anguished. If

For the medical community, treatment is considered ideal, even if the patient’s condition is terminal. In the article “California right-to-die bill set for hearing this month”, from the on-line newspaper “The Press Democrat”, there is an issue presented for the approval of the bill: people who can’t afford health care will find what they call “physician-assisted suicide”, an attractive option to end their suffering (Moore). However, it is even more concerning that the patient has to pay and endure treatment that will not improve their health, and will only prolong the process of personal financial recession, and the suffering of the sickness' consequences. According to the previously quoted article “Record numbers sign up to Swiss right-to-die organization” from “Yahoo! News”, The French Parliament has been pushing a bill that would give permit to doctors so that they could put terminally ill patients into deep sedation - which is a viable, although expensive, solution for the medical community issue (Katharina). There is also the matter of morality; the thought of assisted death being legal conflicts with certain personal and religious views. Amy R. Fournier, columnist of the Maine Today Media newspaper, expresses that “hearing about suicide triggers the natural reactions of grief, confusion and sometimes anger, even if we don’t know the person or family personally” (Fournier, “Right-to-die’ a euphemism meant to