The novel, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, takes place during the Great Depression in United States, for this reason, it is difficult to get jobs. One of the main characters, Lennie, has a mental disability that keeps him from making progress in the world and gets him in to multiple situations in the story. For this reason, George, his best friend and caretaker, decides to kill him. Assisted suicide has become a very controversial topic recently, this is because of the bill that was signed by the governor of California, Jerry Brown, to, “... allow doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients…” (Lovett, Ian). Assisted Suicide is acceptable in some situations and people should have the ability to be able to choose to commit suicide.
By assisting others in suicide, you are putting the person, their family, and the people
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With some diseases, people are in constant pain and the people around them have to watch them suffer through life. Not only is the person with disease suffering, the people around them have to watch them as they painfully go through life. In Of Mice and Men, Lennie unwillingly takes the lives of several animals and a woman, and gets his best friend kicked out of many jobs. He might have taken more lives and have gotten himself into even worse situations if George had not killed Lennie (Steinbeck 1-107).
By allowing assistance in suicide, people have more control of their life. They do not have to wait for a disease to kill them, and instead choose to die instead. This helps because people want to feel like they are in charge and they have the power to decide if they want to try to withstand the suffering or if they want to commit suicide. In the book, George takes Lennie’s life himself, because he wants to be in charge of Lennie’s death and make it as painless as possible (Steinbeck