Myha's+Letter

Dear Mr. Smith,
===First off, thank you for taking the time to share your opinion with our Bioethics class and allowing us to formulate our responses to you. Our Bioethics class greatly appreciates it. ===

===Regarding your view on “Million Dollar Baby” and the wrong message it sent by choosing death over life, I agree and disagree with you. To be honest, the issue at hand is quite a complex, difficult topic, and I often find myself flip-flopping between the two sides of the argument. I believe in life, but I also believe in personal autonomy and free will just as much. I want to say that euthanasia is wrong because it is the taking away of a life, and that would be that. However, I recognize that it is a personal choice that each person, when they are faced with, must make the choice which is right for them. Euthanasia is not a choice I would make for myself or wish for others to make. However, it is wrong to control or to impart one’s opinions on others, so if a person wishes to die by assisted suicide, as much as I dislike it, I would respect their choice and their right to free will. ===

===In class, we studied the Roman Catholic Church’s point of view. The Church, the oldest organized religious institution in the world, is very adamant about preserving human life in all cases. In Cardinal Franjo Seper’s “Declaration on Euthanasia”, life is “a gift of God’s love” and “the basis of all goods…the necessary source and condition of every human activity and all of society”. He highlights the three main beliefs of the Catholic doctrine on euthanasia. First, attempting to take the life of an innocent person is opposing God’s love for that individual. Second, people hold the duty to live out their life as God plans. Lastly, suicide is wrong because it is murder and “a rejection of God’s sovereignty” and “the denial of the natural instinct to live”. ===

=== I am not a Christian nor am I religious; however, I do believe in God. I believe God watches over us, and there are some points I would agree with the Church on. The Roman Catholic Church’s point of view appears morally and ideologically correct: my gut instinct tells me that killing is wrong (except for very few narrow exceptions) and life is extremely precious, so whenever possible, of course, wouldn’t one choose life over death? However, digging deeper into the more complex circumstances and issues, one quite plainly sees that although the Church’s points are ideologically reasonable, they are not life-applicable friendly. ===

===First, I would hope that all human beings agree that life is quite precious and each individual is only entitled to one life. It is one’s basic, inherent possession above all else. It is accurate to describe euthanasia, suicide, and assisted suicide as “a rejection of God’s sovereignty” and “the denial of the natural instinct to live”. I like to believe that there is a reason why each of us are here on this Earth, and if we kill ourselves or others, then we will never be able to know what that purpose was or fulfill it. ===

===The first argument, that killing an innocent person is opposing God’s love, troubles me a bit. If it is euthanasia, and the person in question is asking for it and wants to die, he himself is “rejecting God’s love”. This is where the idea of religion and faith comes in and perplexes me. I recall a Socratic our class had in Bioethics, where we discussed why bad things happen to good people. Why do small babies get cancer? Why do healthy people get into accidents and become quadriplegics? Why does God allow hundreds of thousands of people to die every day because of hunger, lack of clean water, and diseases? If God loves all humans, he has a funny way of showing it. I can’t offer a reason why God allows people to suffer, but I think if people don’t feel God’s love, then they have a right to “reject” it. I don’t think people who are suffering need God’s love as much as they need another human’s love, and sometimes even that love simply isn’t enough to ease the pain and desire to die. ===

=== I believe that whenever possible, life should be chosen before death. However, as a complex, intelligent species, humans are diverse in the way we act and think. Perhaps a person, maybe faced with a disease that renders her to operate in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, decides that there is something still worth living for and something to make out of life. Perhaps another person, in the same or similar situation, has lost the will to live. Who am I, when that person is suffering and going through a path of hell that I have never imagined or experienced before, to tell him that his choice of death is wrong? ===

===Alison Davis is the woman in the wheelchair. Although she is not paralyzed, she has suffered from spina bifida since birth, a congenital disease in which her spinal cord did not fully develop which has required over twenty surgeries during her lifetime. In her essay, “Right to Life of Handicapped”, Davis defends the integrity and value of life for those who are disabled. While those who are handicapped or disabled are often deemed as having “no worthwhile quality of life”, Davis has proven that her disability will not prevent her from fulfilling her life. I think she is an inspiration having graduated from school with a sociology degree, got married, and traveled throughout Europe. Furthermore, she is advocate for life and against euthanasia, which undermines the integrity of the handicapped, as if to say it is O.K. for the handicapped and ill to be euthanatized should they choose so. Mrs. Davis, in spite of difficulty and hardships, has decided that life is still worth living, and it is something I applaud her for. I only wish her story could be everyone else’s story. ===

===Unfortunately, it is not, and there are some people who, when they lose their freedom of their body, lose their desire to live, as well. In Chris Hill’s “The Note”, Mr. Hill, a man who is no longer part of this world, explains his decision and rationale behind suicide. Prior to a hang gliding accident that rendered him paralyzed from the chest down, Hill was able to live a very fortunate life. He had opportunities to travel around the world, finished his education, and was surrounded by many friends and family who completed his life. “In short, I once lived life to the max, always grateful that I had the opportunity to do just that, and always mindful to live for today because there may be no tomorrow.” ===

===Hill’s paralysis robbed him of the desire to live, at least, the desire to live an engaging, fulfilling life like he once lived before. After living as a quadriplegic for several years, he felt the frustration of not being able to move freely, seeing others continue with their lives, and felt like a burden to those taking care of him. After much suffering and thought, he decided death was the choice for him. Something that Mr. Hill wrote struck me: “It’s quality of life, not quantity, that’s important.” If I had my way, I would wish that this man would still want to live and to choose life over death. However, the choice of life or death is a personal one left to the owner of that life to make, and I do not condemn his choice. ===

===In Pieter Admiral’s “Listening and Helping to Die: The Dutch Way”, Dr. Admiral defends euthanasia. In fact, he wrote, “In these cases we fail to respect the patient’s autonomy; we fail to take seriously that person’s own evaluation on suffering and pain. In short, we fail to respect the patient as a self-determining person.” In this struggle between the preciousness of life versus free will and autonomy, I find myself leaning slightly towards autonomy because of one thing: I am not that person and I don’t know what they are going through. As a person who must make all sorts of choices, decisions, and opinions each day, I try to always judge with reason, logic, and sense. I try always to look at things from both points of view, in order to be fair and just. It is difficult for me to judge euthanasia because I only know life, and I have never had any experience wanting to die. I can’t even imagine the pain, the hell, the deep black hole that one must be in to want to die. How can I say that wanting to end the pain is wrong? How can I say that choosing euthanasia over life is immoral when I don’t even know what that is like? ===

===Setting personal choice aside, and solely focusing on the act of euthanasia itself, I must admit I find the idea a little bit morbid. To think that this doesn’t happen in the middle of the night as the majority of people are sleeping and blissfully ignorant of it, but rather in the middle of the plain day at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, does not sit too comfortably with me. I don’t condemn it as morally wrong and evil, but I wouldn’t regard it as morally right either, as in Admiral’s essay “Listening and Helping to Die”. I understand that sometimes euthanasia is required to end one’s unimaginable suffering and pain, and that sometimes “to fail to practice voluntary euthanasia under some circumstances is to fail the patient.” I don’t think euthanasia should be legalized because I do agree with the Catholic Church that it would promote a culture of death, similar to how abortion is accepted today (but that’s a whole other issue). I do, however, believe that where euthanasia is legally permissible (such as Oregon and Washington), before euthanasia is granted, it must be approved by a team of doctors, nurses, and a “spiritual caregiver”, as outlined in “Listening and Helping to Die”. ===

===Euthanasia is an issue to be taken very seriously, and before the morphine is injected into the patient in less than an hour a la Jack Kevorkian style, euthanasia, whether active or passive, and suicide, careful consideration and thought must be given. This is my biggest problem with the idea of euthanasia. Questions such as “Is every last inkling of hope gone from this person?”, “Does he or she really want to die, or is it the post-accident trauma that is talking?”, “Has this person given thought to what will become of their loved ones after he or she is gone?” needs to be asked. Perhaps this is what troubled me the most after watching “Million Dollar Baby”. Frankie did not even stop to think or ask these questions. He only recognized that Maggie was suffering and needed to be put out of the discomfort she was in. No consideration was given to setting her up with a counselor or therapist, or making her try to sit in the wheelchair he suggested or taking online community classes—anything that could perhaps spark some desire to live within her. In short, the towel was thrown in too quickly. There should always be a fight to live, not a fight to die. ===

===Mr. Smith, or to whomever it may concern, thank you for making it to the end of my letter, and I apologize if my ideas overwhelmed you by jumping back and forth between choosing life or choosing death. I don’t know whether euthanasia is morally right or wrong, and if there was a clear, definitive answer, this debate would probably not be in existence. I don’t like euthanasia or give it my full support, but I do understand why people choose that option and I respect their choice. Euthanasia should always be considered as a last decision, after all means of preserving life have been exhausted. Perhaps you will agree with me that there should always be a fight to live, not to die. Thank you for taking the time to read this. ===