Euthanasia. This act "of painlessly putting to death persons suffering from painful and incurable disease or incapacitating physical disorder or allowing them to die by withholding treatment or withdrawing artificial life-support measures", according to the Britannica Dictionary, is also called 'mercy killing' in some countries. Well, judging solely based on its definition, euthanasia sounds like a perfect, merciful, angel-like thing: helping a patient who have suffered from endless pain for a very long time by removing artificial medical assistance and stopping further life-support measures. Today, I would like to invite you to my stream of thoughts regarding the topic 'euthanasia'.
1. I am an enthusiastic advocate of euthanasia. Though I am still young to plan my death ahead, I personally aim to sign a will that states my intention to go through euthanasia when I am under certain medical condition. My reasoning is simple: I do not want to go through an arduous, painful, and costly journey at the end of my life if there is a merciful option called euthanasia that can get rid of my agony. My parents also share this view of mine. They all told me that artificial life-support measure is the last thing they wish to encounter before death and therefore revealed their strong desire to choose euthanasia when the right moment comes.
2. As a law student, I spent considerable length of time to link euthanasia with our current legal system since all measures conducted by human beings need some sort of legal explanations and boundaries. However, I found it very fascinating that euthanasia, in my opinion, is the only type of death that can either be murder or suicide even though the result of the same action is identical. Imagine there is a patient who completely relies on his oxygen respirator. If he voluntarily removes the respirator with his own hand, that death will be considered suicide. On the other hand, if a doctor (or a nurse or any other person) removes it, it will then be murder.
3. But this gets tricky when we begin to think about the following scenario. Before the patient began to rely solely on his respirator, he had a meeting with his lawyer, wrote a will that says "The removal of my respirator which will consequently lead to my death shall not be used as a ground of any sort of crime or accusation ... I voluntarily and sincerely desire to choose the option of euthanasia when I have no other option than to rely on the respirator in order to survive ... I would like to die with dignity, not with multiple machines attached on my body.", and notarized the document. He signed the document with his own hand, recorded the entire conversation with his camera, and sent that recording to everyone who knows him. Furthermore, he told his doctors, nurses, friends, and family members (basically everyone who received the aforementioned recording) his intention to choose euthanasia. So, in this case, can the act of suicide/murder of this poor man be legitimized since he truly wanted to die? Is it still a crime/wrongful behavior or is it rather a mercy? Can one's 'right to die with dignity' beat the accusers and their claims against euthanasia? Fundamentally speaking, is it even possible for us to legally regulate one's decision to give up his/her own life?
The word euthanasia came from a Greek word meaning 'good death'. With this in mind, I would like to suggest you to spend some portion of your time this week to think about this fascinating topic. We will be more than delighted to hear your valuable thoughts.