Every Person example essay topic
432 words
In Crime of Compassion, Barbara Huttmann describes a situation in which she was forced to decide whether to resuscitate a patient, or not. One of the most important beliefs in the medical community is that they "must extend life as long as [they] have the means and the knowledge to do it". By deciding in the end not to try to stop her patient's inevitable death, Huttmann goes against the beliefs that many of her colleagues, and probably her herself, previously held. Her actions open up an important question: Is it a person's right to refuse medical treatment, signing their own death warrant? It is my opinion that every person should be given this opportunity. In everyday life, suicide has become a common occurrence. Millions of healthy people make the choice to take their own lives every year, and although we try to prevent those individuals from doing so, it is eventually up to them. Why then, is a person who has a terminal illness any different?
If all people are equal, than logically a sick person should have every right that a healthy one does, including the right to die. Many believe this kind of interference to be homicide. They feel that any and all measures should be taken to preserve life for as long as possible. It is not likely, though, that many of these people have personally experienced the decay of a close loved one. Huttmann vividly describes for us the things that most normal people do not see, such as how the nurses must "suction the lung fluids that threatened to drown [Mac], clean the feces that burned his skin... pour liquid food down the tube [and] change his gown".
She tells us that Mac was "resuscitated fifty-two times in one month". Most people are not faced with a suffering person imploring them for the release of death as the author does, and can only imagine what it would be like to hold the hand of a man who knows he is dying and tell him he has to live a bit longer. In the end, every person should have control of their own destiny. It is the right of every human to shape the course of their own life, and those with illnesses need this right even more. To be able to decide: should I live or should I die today? It is a question that should be asked and answered by each individual person, and no one else.
