Voluntary Euthanasia As An Option example essay topic

Debatable the most controversial issue in the fields of medicine and theology, euthanasia has a great many undeniable disadvantages. A morally unacceptable way to deal with inconvenient elderly, assisted suicide allows humanity the option of living. Life being an unalienable right, should not be regarded as an option. Voluntary euthanasia as an option for the terminally ill is an inconceivable practice due to the disastrous effects it has on the individuals directly involved, society as a whole, and the professional field of medicine.

Euthanasia has an overwhelming amount of guilt and responsibility on the people explicitly involved. With such a low cost, socially acceptable option available, the patient and their families experience a large amount of guilt accompanying the treatment. With this "honorable" way of dealing with the situation, patients would feel pressured into the expected choice, either resulting in guilt from not using lethal injection or a choice derived from their guilt in favor of the process. The family faces an equal amount of guilt for the recommendation, or for not whole-heartedly rejecting the idea; especially if the patient acts in favor of suicide to test his or her self worth to relatives based on their reaction. At the same time, and in much the same way, a great deal of responsibility presents itself in such an issue. The patient has the responsibility for a valid decision despite social pressures such as the acceptable, low cost, least burdening route.

Relatives must take an impartial side to the matter and overlook their own interests and conveniences when counseling the ill. Analyzing each situation will ensure such stressful conditions as undiagnosed depression or misapprehension of the details surrounding the event does not cloud judgments. As is obvious, there are many emotions affecting everyone involved with such a serious matter that may haunt his or her consciousness for years. Furthermore, the implementation of euthanasia will have major effects on society, resulting in the distress of humanity for generations to come. Conveying to our society the deliberate taking of one's life as an acceptable practice contradicts law and morality. If the taking of another's life under certain circumstances becomes frequent, then as a result, murder statistics will increase due to the common person granting himself the authority to differentiate the validity of the exceptions.

With the declining morality of our social structure, the introduction of premeditated, assisted suicide will not help matters. Next, involuntary euthanasia and instances of not following prescribed procedures would inevitably escalate to unacceptable numbers. Regardless of precautions taken, there will never be an impeccable way of enforcing laws that limit misuse and keep lethal injections out of the wrong hands. The inadvertent aftermath remains distinctively apparent in areas where euthanasia has been legalized, such as Holland, where instances are occurring excruciatingly too often and cannot be overlooked. Likewise, social humanity and political order will obviously diminish when dealing with a dilemma of such proportions. Moreover, the medical field that communities have worked so hard establishing will slowly dissipate with disastrous results.

Understood on a widespread basis as among the most considerably cost efficient methods used to solve modern day ailments, euthanasia will be favored in many cases rather than administering the proper care. Funding in geriatric and palliative medicine will suffer with such a low cost alternative available, stunting the progression of discovering cures for the terminal diseases that select practitioners are so quick to alleviate with death. The promotion of assisted suicide will become too common as a result, and advances in medicine will slow. Still, a tragic result would be the regression of genuine relationships between patients and their doctors that makes medical treatment so effective. Trust continues to be the basis of every doctor's ability to relate to his patient and is extremely important in the diagnoses and treatment of health conditions. For this reason, cases of people avoiding doctors for treatment out of fear that euthanasia will be a recommendation are already apparent where the procedure is legal.

Therefore, in order to maintain the steady growth in medical technology and development, euthanasia has no place in the field. Consequently, the resulting risks associated with the legalizing of this brutish and obsolete form of treatment as common practice clearly remains too great to warrant proper justification. When the result of malpractice associated with voluntary euthanasia is as costly a price as a person's life, little or no room for error is acceptable. The medical field, social community, and people associated with the procedure stand to suffer too greatly from the result of allowing assisted suicide. Taking into account but a few of the many drastic problems with the incorporation of such a controversial issue, one can only hope authorities do not fall victim to the uneducated misconception and misinterpretation of the details involved..