SHOULD ASSISTED SUICIDE BE LEGAL?

Should assisted suicide be legal?

Should assisted suicide be legal?

Thesis

Medical advances have created ethical dilemmas which no previous generation of doctors has ever faced. New life-sustaining techniques and practices are forcing physicians to ask questions that never needed to be asked before. Today, more than ever, the push is on to "change the rules." Dr. Kevorkian, while deplored by most medical professionals for his methods, is heralded as a hero on many fronts for bringing this issue into the public square. By all accounts a time of decision is upon us. This is Carlos Gomez's forced argument, developed after investigating the Netherlands' experience, and presented in his book Regulating Death. "How will we assure ourselves that the weak, the demented, the vulnerable, the stigmatized-those incapable of consent or dissent-will not become the unwilling objects of such a practice? No injustice," Gomez contends, "would be greater than being put to death, innocent of crime and unable to articulate one's interests. It is the possibility-or in my estimation, the likelihood-of such injustice occurring that most hardens my resistance for giving public sanction to euthanasia." Clearly, the ethical dilemmas surrounding terminal health care will be with us for years to come. There are more than seventy million baby boomers in this country, most of whom are currently grappling with the issue of aging parents. And in the decades to come we ourselves won't be getting any younger. Ironically, our current situation is due in large part to the successes of medical science, not its failures. More people live longer today than ever in history because we have eliminated many of the diseases that once terrorized us as a society. But some of the problem is due in part to our love affair with technology. When machines, tubes and computers take over, compassion and common sense sometimes seem to suffer. Fortunately, there seems to be an increased awareness of the intrusiveness of technology. Living wills, ethics committees and hospice care are all responses to this awareness. How we choose to die in America is a complicated subject that needs clear thinking and a fair discussion of the ethical and technical dilemmas surrounding it. But let's keep in mind that even if we agreed that death technologies are wrong, this would not be an endorsement of the notion that people must be kept alive for as long as possible at any cost.

Anit-Thesis

Assisted suicide seems, at first blush, like a good thing to have available. But on closer inspection, there are many reasons that legalizing assisted suicide is a terrible idea. While an extremely small number of people may benefit, they will tend to be at the upper end of the income scale, white, and have good health insurance coverage. At the same time, large numbers of people, particularly among those less privileged in society, would be at significant risk of substantial harm. We must separate our private wishes for what we each may hope to have available for ourselves some day and, rather, ...