However, one woman had spent a month in a hospice and had seen nine women die. It had not been a pleasant experience. A woman with motor neurone disease also wanted the law changed so that if she became a 'total cabbage' someone could help her to die. She believed her husband had suffered unnecessarily and did not want the same for herself. Like several others she said that laws on euthanasia are made by 'people who are able-bodied', who 'don't have a clue'.
When talking about their personal situation several people said that they found that the wish for euthanasia gave rise to a conflict within them that they found hard to sort out. Some people discussed the moral complexity of the situation. Many pointed out that it would be unfair to prosecute a caring partner who had helped with a suicide, although one man said that relatives might want a sick person to die and so encourage euthanasia.
A few people said it was important that each case should be judged on its own merit. Some people with religious beliefs are strongly opposed to any form of assisted death but some said that it might not always be God's will to prolong life.
One Christian had reluctantly concluded that quality of life could be so poor that assisted death would be appropriate, but worried that some might decide to end their lives because they were thinking more about their carer than themselves.
One argument against euthanasia is that people should not need it if their pain is correctly controlled. A man who was dying of bladder cancer was sure that pain could be controlled but recognised that the palliative care team might find it hard to ease the suffering of someone with a very debilitating neurological illness.
He has put together a bottle of pills so that he can end his life if it becomes unbearable. View full profile. As I said, I took an overdose when I discovered that my illness was more than just cancer and I would've had no regrets, it wasn't a cry for help. I did not want to be found but my son had gone out to dinner that evening to a local restaurant and had spilled a glass of red wine down his white shirt and he came home and he found me.
If he wouldn't have found me then, who knows? But I have something that I call the great escape. Why the Great Escape? Well you go back to the Steve McQueen and the hero bit, but there is a bottle of tablets that I have put together myself that I know will end my life.
The chances of me actually taking it is very, very small but I have to have that ultimate control. That ultimate sanction that I can decide because one of my fears is that if I am in too much pain and I am too miserable and every day is a living hell then may be I don't want to be around any more.
And I will make that decision. Would you call that euthanasia? I would call that taking a practical step to doing something. It's not euthanasia because euthanasia is taken by others. It's dealt with by other people. This will be something that I will do myself. And having researched on the internet as to what the drugs that I put together will do I am quite confident that it will do what it needs to do. Have you got an opinion about euthanasia? Yes I do have an opinion on euthanasia.
Euthanasia per se I am against. I don't believe it's the right of anybody else to terminate somebody else's life. However the people that have motor neurone disease, the people that have MS and are in excruciating pain, a lot worse than the pain that I have, they should be able, in conjunction with their partner, to decide that enough is enough and that they should be able to take their own life.
She likes the idea of a pill she could take to end her life if she were in pain and clearly dying. I do like the idea of being able to take a pill if you've got to the end of the line and you're in a lot of pain and discomfort. So from that point of view yes but I still feel you've got to be well There's a big debate about that isn't there, euthanasia and - Yes. It's very difficult if you can't do it yourself but I think you cannot put that sort of pressure on one of your nearest and dearest to do it for you.
I can understand why the people go out to Switzerland where somebody they don't know can give them the fatal overdose. But I still think you're putting pressure on somebody else to do something, for you. Have you ever thought what you might do in a situation like that? I think I'd just have to get on with it quite honestly, and I think if I was going to do it myself I think I would have to tell my family as well and get them to agree.
If it got to that it would have to be at a point where I could see there was no return, that there was nothing could be done and it was just down hill and it was just going to be pain and then the death at the end of it.
To just go quietly to sleep and just lose all that pain and angst. It really does appeal. I must admit. Charlotte visited her uncle, who lived in Holland. He was seriously ill with cancer. She was And then we also decided to do some planning about his funeral.
So we sat down and he talked about some music that he wanted and music that had meant a lot to him in relation to his wife, my Aunt.
And how he thought the funeral should go. So and by then everybody was there. Very peaceful. Very, very peaceful. They have to turn themselves over, their bodies you know their treatment, other people are making decisions for them. Charlotte does not think that her uncle was religious or that he was sure that there would be Did he have any sort of spiritual beliefs do you know?
I think he was rather anti religion. You know there he was at home with the people he loved, in a way that he could take charge at that point, where he probably felt rather powerless in many other aspects of his life. She would like to die with her family around her, but if she commits suicide she plans to die alone. When I know I'm not going to be able to cope with life any more, the pain is bad now, I'm on morphine, I get a lot of break through pain.
When I get to the pitch where I really can't cope with anything any more, where my quality of life is totally gone, I will tell my husband I want a really good day out with the kids, which is when he'll know that when I go to bed that night I won't wake up the next morning. Because you're going to take control? Have you talked to anyone else about that? Yes I've talked to my GP about it. He wishes I lived in another country because that decision would be helped. This is something I talked about to your friend this morning, and we talked about the Government's national policy on it, Yes On assisted suicide and euthanasia, Yes And how there's a lot of debate at the moment about this, Yes And I wondered like if you were in control of legislation what would you say should happen?
It has to be really carefully dealt with. I think that you have to really look into it seriously, whether this is the right thing for the right person because I think there is the risk it might be abused. But with myself if the legislation was there then it would be nicer for me so I'm not on my own which I know I will be because I don't want any of the family here when it happens.
Why don't you want anyone with you? Because I don't want them involved, I don't want them to get in trouble. You don't want them to get into trouble? Which is a tough one. Mm But I shall concentrate on the day we've had out beforehand. Will you explain it to them in a letter or I've done it already yes.
I've already written a poem to be read out at my funeral. I've written a letter to both my children. In the letter I've told them if they've ever been angry with me and they're feeling guilty please don't because it's no more angry than I felt at myself. I've given them permission to be cross at the end which I think is going to be important for them because they will be angry, they will be cross.
They'll be hurt, they'll want to know, they'll be in denial that it's happened. You've thought about it so deeply and so thoroughly haven't you? Yes I've, I have because I wanted to stay in control. Well thank you for telling me all that because it's such an important, Yes Aspect of everything isn't it? Yes, yes And anybody like me tries with difficulty to put myself in your shoes. Mm No one can but respect what you said. I think if some of these ministers and politicians who are against euthanasia, I often wonder if it was their life or their wife or mother how they'd feel then.
I don't like my child. Equally, if an intervention, at a burden acceptable to the person, renders in their considered judgement their lives worth living again, they will not ask for an assisted death.
In most corners of the world people have fought hard to increase their individual freedoms to live their lives by their own values. A significant state interest is harmed if the state wishes to infringe on such autonomy rights. It is true the health system, and indeed the state, should respect patient autonomy. Yet in practice we often put other considerations ahead of concerns like autonomy. Patients may not receive the treatments they request for a variety of reasons, like they may be prohibitively expensive, have a negligible chance of success, or no medical justification.
I believe if it is harmful to the interests of the state to legalise euthanasia for patients without a terminal illness, then the state has a right to refuse. Significantly more research needs to be conducted on the social impacts of euthanasia, and physician assisted suicide, for patients without a medical condition. Jurisdictions such as Oregon only allow assisted suicide for patients with a terminal illness. However, even in the best of all possible health care worlds, unless unbearable suffering itself has been eliminated, some patients will ask for an assisted death.
Xavier correctly mentions some reasons for doctors justifiably not providing certain patient-requested medical care. They are all based in different ways on harm-to-others justifications such as resource allocation rationales, or are futility-related arguably also a case of harm-to-others given the reality of limited health care resources.
This reasoning is not applicable to the case under consideration given the self-regarding nature of the request. Xavier is correct that the state would be under no obligation to legalise euthanasia for not catastrophically ill patients if that was significantly harmful to the interests of the state. However, there is no evidence that the availability of euthanasia is harmful to state interests.
If this article has raised issues for you or anyone you know, call or visit Lifeline 13 11 14 www. Portsmouth Climate Festival — Portsmouth, Portsmouth. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Religious opponents disagree because they believe that the right to decide when a person dies belongs to God. Secular opponents argue that whatever rights we have are limited by our obligations. The decision to die by euthanasia will affect other people - our family and friends, and healthcare professionals - and we must balance the consequences for them guilt, grief, anger against our rights.
We should also take account of our obligations to society, and balance our individual right to die against any bad consequences that it might have for the community in general. These bad consequences might be practical - such as making involuntary euthanasia easier and so putting vulnerable people at risk. There is also a political and philosophical objection that says that our individual right to autonomy against the state must be balanced against the need to make the sanctity of life an important, intrinsic, abstract value of the state.
Secular philosophers put forward a number of technical arguments, mostly based on the duty to preserve life because it has value in itself, or the importance of regarding all human beings as ends rather than means. Without creating or acknowledging a specific right to die, it is possible to argue that other human rights ought to be taken to include this right. Those in favour of euthanasia will argue that respect for this right not to be killed is sufficient to protect against misuse of euthanasia, as any doctor who kills a patient who doesn't want to die has violated that person's rights.
Opponents of euthanasia may disagree, and argue that allowing euthanasia will greatly increase the risk of people who want to live being killed. The danger of violating the right to life is so great that we should ban euthanasia even if it means violating the right to die. This is the idea that the rights to privacy and freedom of belief give a person the right to decide how and when to die. This argument is based on the fact that the Suicide Act made it legal for people to take their own lives.
Euthanasia opponents further point out that there is a moral difference between decriminalising something, often for practical reasons like those mentioned above, and encouraging it. They can quite reasonably argue that the purpose of the Suicide Act is not to allow euthanasia, and support this argument by pointing out that the Act makes it a crime to help someone commit suicide.
This is true, but that provision is really there to make it impossible to escape a murder charge by dressing the crime up as an assisted suicide. Opponents attack the libertarian argument specifically by claiming that there are no cases that fit the conditions above:.
This argument has not been put forward publicly or seriously by any government or health authority. It is included here for completeness.
As a result, some people who are ill and could be cured are not able to get speedy access to the facilities they need for treatment. At the same time health resources are being used on people who cannot be cured, and who, for their own reasons, would prefer not to continue living. Allowing such people to commit euthanasia would not only let them have what they want, it would free valuable resources to treat people who want to live. Abuse of this would be prevented by only allowing the person who wanted to die to intitiate the process, and by regulations that rigorously prevented abuse.
This proposal is an entirely pragmatic one; it says that we should allow euthanasia because it will allow more people to be happy. Such arguments will not convince anyone who believes that euthanasia is wrong in principle.
Others will object because they believe that such a proposal is wide-open to abuse, and would ultimately lead to involuntary euthanasia because of shortage of health resources. In the end, they fear, people will be expected to commit euthanasia as soon as they become an unreasonable burden on society.
One of the commonly accepted principles in ethics, put forward by Immanuel Kant, is that only those ethical principles that could be accepted as a universal rule i. So you should only do something if you're willing for anybody to do exactly the same thing in exactly similar circumstances, regardless of who they are. The justification for this rule is hard to find - many people think it's just an obvious truth philosophers call such truths self-evident.
You find variations of this idea in many faiths; for example "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". A rule is universalisable if it can consistently be willed as a law that everyone ought to obey. The only rules which are morally good are those which can be universalised. The person in favour of euthanasia argues that giving everybody the right to have a good death through euthanasia is acceptable as a universal principle, and that euthanasia is therefore morally acceptable.
If a person wants to be allowed to commit euthanasia, it would clearly be inconsistent for them to say that they didn't think it should be allowed for other people. But the principle of universalisability doesn't actually provide any positive justification for anything - genuine moral rules must be universalisable, but universalisability is not enough to say that a rule is a satisfactory moral rule. Universalisability is therefore only a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition for a rule to be a morally good rule.
So, other than showing that one pre-condition is met, universalisibility doesn't advance the case for euthanasia at all. Every case is different in some respect, so anyone who is inclined to argue about it can argue about whether the particular differences are sufficent to make this case an exception to the rule. Oddly enough, the law of universalisability allows for there to be exceptions - as long as the exceptions are themselves universalisable.
So you could have a universal rule allowing voluntary euthanasia and universalise an exception for people who were less than 18 years old.
0コメント