KRISTINE ARGUELLES PRONGCO

11-ST.MATTHEW

Should Euthanasia be practiced?

Euthanasia—the proper term for mercy killing—is the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to
relieve pain and suffering. This assumes a patient is aware they are going to die, and in some cases they
must administers the poison themselves. This is also called assisted suicide.

People who want to commit suicide—due to despair, disappointment, or for any other reason—seem to
be unwilling to make this fearsome step on their own. Thus, they strive to share the responsibility of
cutting their lives short in the presence of others, basically with doctors. But if a person feels they want
to die, they should not bring in someone to do it. If suicide are illegal, then why are we helping people
commit suicide .The very fact that people call it mercy killing doesn’t mean that it stops to be a murder,
since you still take their lives away.

Arguments supporting euthanasia usually present the fact that the patient would have no cure, and no
way of contributing to society in the state they are in. They claim humanity cannot help such individuals
either: all that can be done is prolonging their agony when suffering from terminal disease or letting
them live with a defective life in the case of suffering from serious mental deviations. However, the very
thought of killing people due to their disabilities seems unnatural; besides who is competent and
authorized enough to decide whom to kill and whom to let live?

The German child Gerhard Kretschmar whose case is one of the most well-known examples of
euthanasia was born blind, missing limbs, and prone to convulsions. Adolf Hitler gave Kretshmar’s
doctor permission to commit a child murder, since medicine could not help him. The problem is that
while Kretschmar’s killing was done Parental children were either starved to death or killed by lethal
injection.

As the T4 Program continued, handicapped people were kill with gas vans and killing centers, eventually
leading to the death of 70,000 German adults. Since this campaign was clearly being used as a
murderous machine to take out the unwanted, the definition of euthanasia was stretched to fit the
Government’s viewpoint. The main dangerous here is that in the scenario of modern society weakening
its control over the issue of euthanasia, history can repeat itself and soon it will be up to the
government whether or not you are able to contribute to society.

You may have heard of the stories of a doctor or nurse deliberately helping their incurable patient pass
on to the other side. They are usually promptly arrested and the mass media enjoys giving these persons
name like “Angels of Death” or “Suicide Helpers”. Some people might think such doctors’ actions are
merciful and graceful since many patients who are terminally ill are waiting to die, sometimes being in
severe pain. Yet, there are also opponents to this rationale who claim that killing is still killing, no matter
what motives the murderer had or how difficult the patient’s suffering was. One of the main questions
in treating patients who cannot be cures is weather mercy killings are to be allowed legally to help end
sometimes suffering—the answer should be, “No”.