Addison's+Letter

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Dear Mr. Wesley J. Smith,

Hello! My name is Addison and I’m a senior at Foothill Technology High School. Now, before I disagree with you, I would like to say thank you for taking the time to read these many blog postings. I don’t think many people would willingly read the opinions of high school students, let alone their opinions on the controversial topic of euthanasia. However, this makes your cooperation all the more appreciated. Thank you Mr. Smith!

Now, according to the “Declaration on Euthanasia”, by Cardinal Franjo Seper, “intentionally causing one’s own death, or suicide, is equally as wrong as murder…” and should be “…considered as a rejection of God’s sovereignty and loving plan”. Not surprisingly this idea of suicide being disrespectful to God is mirrored in the articles later statements regarding Euthanasia, saying, “…no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being”, that even asking for “this act of killing” is not allowed as it questions and violates the divine law and is an “attack on humanity”. However, according to this article, the Catholic Church supports, the refusal of “forms of treatment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life…,” after all means of medical treatment have been exhausted and it is clear the person is terminally ill. In other words, Cardinal Franjo Seper and the Catholic Church accept passive euthanasia.

This article highlights the differences between active and passive euthanasia. According to Cardinal Franjo Seper, the Catholic Church accepts passive euthanasia, such as removing a feeding tube and starving to death, but opposes active euthanasia, such as a morphine injection. Pieter Admiraal recalls in his article “Listening and Helping to Die: The Dutch Way”, of a Catholic patient who, after suffering from a terrible illness, requested a lethal injection to end her life, active euthanasia. “’God could not have wanted this’” she said in regards to her own suffering she sought to end. Despite the traditional Catholic opposition to active euthanasia, eventually doctors, family, and Catholic chaplains agreed that active euthanasia was acceptable in the patient’s, Carla’s, case and stood by her side as the doctor administered the lethal drug.

In his article, Admiraal acknowledges how some may view his deliberate steps to end Carla’s life as morally wrong due to his use of active euthanasia. Carla “was terminally ill, was suffering greatly and desperately wanted to die”. According to Cardinal Franjo Seper’s article this would allow Carla to die by passive euthanasia without disrespecting God. However, Carla didn’t want to suffer any more, and she didn’t want to die “passively”, she just wanted her trials and tribulations to end. Carla’s state of being terminally ill allows Admiraal to justify his use of active euthanasia much as it would have qualified his use of passive, instead of active, euthanasia. Further supporting his action, he states that to him “passive euthanasia is morally worse than active euthanasia,” it being “morally worse in all cases where we inflict on the patient a way of dying that he or she does not want, and finds unacceptable and undignified”.

Admiraal advocates a patient’s right to autonomy, to be able to have control over the amount of pain and suffering one goes through before finally being released from the body they are trapped in. It’s wrong for a doctor to decide how much pain and suffering a patient must endure for the sake of the doctor’s own personal morals.

What I find most disturbing about the Cardinal’s view point, is how, according to the Cardinal’s article, “…suffering, especially suffering during the last moments of life, has a special place in God’s saving plan…” I don’t understand this. While I appreciate the Cardinal’s acceptance of //at least// passive euthanasia, I think that if one is terminally ill and their suffering is just going to get worse and more unbearable, why not just let them off the hook? Why not just let one slowly drift to sleep instead of starving to death? They’ve had a whole life to endure misery and pain, is this last bought of anguish to fill some sort of “death and despair quota”? Why would suffering make you that much better of a person in God’s eyes then someone who is just an overall good person? Why must one suffer to prove one’s love? According to the Catholic viewpoint, active euthanasia and suicide are disrespectful to the God-given gift of life. However, I believe that the amount of suffering experienced by an individual should never be too much they can handle, as it would be disrespectful to humans and an abuse of power if God forced one to suffer to a degree that pushes them towards ending their life early. If we are made in His image, He should know how much pain we can and can’t handle, and how cruel it is to push us until we crack under pressure, just to see how much we will put up with for His love. I think that when someone is given more suffering then they can handle, they are being set up to fail.

To me the right to an easy death doesn’t just mean pulling out a feeding tube and waiting for stomach acid to consume and kill you, it means a painless, calm death. I agree with Admiraal’s stance on letting the patient decide their own course from life to death instead of the doctor forcing a patient to suffer. In both instances of active and passive euthanasia, death will bring relief; the difference is how much one must suffer beforehand.

Alison Davis, author of the “Right to Life of Handicapped”, cannot imagine what it’s like to not be handicapped. Her article, written in response to a “bill drafted by Mr. and Mrs. Brahams permitting doctors to withhold treatment from newborn handicapped babies”, expresses her opposition to such legislation as it could lead to “the act of killing a handicapped person of any age, just as it did in Hitler’s Germany.” First of all I don’t think it’s fair to compare anything to or predict something will one day be like the Holocaust. Unless over 6 million people with a specific thing in common are being tortured, massacred, or experimented on for the sake of a tyrant’s ideals, nothing can be compared to “Hitler’s Germany”. It’s an unfair comparison and is kind of a cheap shot. Don’t go there.

Davis prides herself on the fact that she is alive, despite Mr. and Mrs. Braham’s predictions regarding her “potential quality of life”. Davis is “28 years old, and suffers from…myelomeningocele spina bifida…has suffered considerable and prolonged pain from time to time, and has undergone over 20 operations…[is] doubly incontinent and confined to a wheel-chair”. She now works defending the “right to life of handicapped people” using her own success as a shining example of why euthanasia should not be allowed in the case of the handicapped, and why new born babies with disabilities should be given the same chance at life as healthy infants. You know what, good for her. It’s great that she’s travelling the world fighting for what she believes in. I don’t think there are many people who feel passionately enough about anything to fight for it as much as Davis fights for her cause. However, she does not know what it’s like to //not// be handicapped.

And on the other side of the argument we have Chris Hill. Hill was left paralyzed from the chest down after a hang-gliding accident, or, as he says in his suicide note, he was “three-quarters dead. A talking head mounted on a bloody wheelchair.” “[He] once lived life to the max, always grateful that [he] had the opportunity to do just that, and always mindful to live for today because there may not be tomorrow.” Hill spent his life travelling; always an active participant in whatever life threw his way. He “skied waist-deep powder snow in untracked Coloradoan glades; soared thermals to 8000 feet in a hang-glider and have literally flown with the eagles…ridden a motorcycle at 265 km/h on a Japanese racetrack and up to the 5000 meter snowline on an Ecuadorian volcano…more than most people would experience in several lifetimes.” After his accident, despite Hill’s frustration with how completely dependent on others he became, despite the pain and swelling accompanied by his inability to move, the “tinea, crutch rot, headaches”, Hill, in his own words “worked hard-harder than I ever have at anything-to try and rebuild my life”. Even after his life became “just a miserable existence, an awful parody of normalcy” a challenging life without any reward to make it worthwhile, he still tried to carry on. But who, after experiencing such a fulfilling life could possibly live as Hill would have lived, if he hadn’t killed himself.

One main difference between the point of view of Chris Hill and Alison Davis is that Hill became severely handicapped while Davis has always been handicapped. Davis doesn’t know any other way of living then being confined to a wheel chair and doubly incontinent. She doesn’t fully understand how her condition pales in comparison to being completely competent and able to control ones bowels. Hill, at one point had full use of his limbs and organs, and having his body no longer be under his control was too much for him to handle. “The medical professions attitude of life at any cost was an inhumane presumption that amounted to arrogance…It’s quality of life, not quantity that’s important” (Hill).

In Hill’s case, I feel euthanasia would have been okay. He tried to enjoy his new life but couldn’t bear not being able to be an active participant in it, trapped in his own motionless body. Davis, I think has a point about giving newborns with disabilities a chance at life but she goes a little overboard when assuming euthanasia will lead to a mass annihilation of all handicapped people. No one can say who a baby is going to turn out to be or what they’re going to do with their lives so not even giving them a chance just doesn’t seem fair. Also, if they’re disabled their whole life, they won’t know any better and will probably accept their situation and appreciate every minute of their life that much more. Plus, Davis has lived/is living a life that she is genuinely proud of, despite her condition.

Good for her, but not all who are disabled at the end of life are born into a damaged body and may have trouble accepting the incomplete life their broken physique restricts them too. Both Davis and Hill did what they love for a living, Davis fighting for what she believes in and Hill being an active participant in life. Hill had everything that made him happy taken away from him when he was paralyzed, I wonder how Davis would feel if she could no long fight for the “Right to Life of Handicapped”.

If you are up and walking around one day and paralyzed from the neck down, just a head in a bed, the next, euthanasia seems like an okay alternative to a life full of pain and dependence on others. However, I do think that before making a decision regarding euthanasia, the person considering euthanasia should make a legitimate effort to try and adjust to their new way of being alive. There should also be meetings with multiple psychiatrists, physical therapists, and whatever other array of doctors a condition calls for, to see if there is any hope of gaining use of limbs and make sure that the person’s choice of euthanasia isn’t one made due to depression. Euthanasia is a last resort option and should only be carried out once the patient feels confident that their decision is made of sound mind so they can be at peace when they die, knowing they tried everything and that Euthanasia was the best possible option for them.

Similarly, active or passive euthanasia is acceptable when a patient is dying of a painful malady that there is no hope of surviving. I don’t think that at the first sign of cancer one should start thinking about euthanasia. Euthanasia should be allowed when it’s clear that the patient is going to die a horrible painful death. It is upon such observations that the psychiatric evaluations and second opinions should begin, to avoid any mistakes regarding a prognosis.

At the end of the day, my opinions regarding euthanasia really come down pain and suffering. In class people kept trying to relate the euthanasia of people to that of euthanizing dogs. While this was at first a bit awkward, to compare the life a human to that of a dog, I realized that at the end, euthanasia would be performed for the same reason: to end suffering. Dogs handle pain differently than humans; they only show they’re in pain when it becomes absolutely unbearable. One minute they can be completely happy, the next dejected and downtrodden. People don’t like to see their pets suffer because pet owners know that at some point, there’s nothing you can do about the course of a disease. It is with this thought in mind that people take steps towards euthanizing a beloved family pet, it is with this same thought that one may consider euthanasia a viable option when suffering of a terminal illness, or a sickness which will cause continuous pain and misery until death.

No one should have to end life in great pain if such pain can be avoided. We’re all going to die eventually; I just hope that when that time comes, one will have the right to autonomy, to decide how the rest of their life will play out.

Once again, thank you Mr. Smith for taking the time to read these blogs it really means the world to our Bioethics class. Have a great rest of the day (afternoon, night, whatever time you read this)!

Sincerely, Addison