Why Euthanize?
Its pretty basic, the effect of euthanasia is always going to be death. That isn’t a brain busters that people are trying to wrap their heads around. The real question that people struggle to grasp is what causes people to want to be euthanized. To most people, the thought of ending their own life is foreign, they have trouble grasping why anyone would want to do it, and tell themselves that the thought would never cross their mind. For the terminally ill that qualify for euthanasia, this is not only a thought for them, it is a serious option. Not only would legalizing euthanasia help those with terminal illnesses to end their suffering, it would empower the human race. With current laws, things like assisted suicide and euthanasia are strictly illegal. That takes aways peoples freedoms and jurisdictions over their own life and body.
The desire of euthanasia can be the effect of years of dealing with the constant pain that certain terminal diseases can cause a patient. The argument is made that with enough medicine, there is no such thing as “unbearable pain” and the patient won’t feel a thing. Not only does this method of dealing with the pain become very expensive, it can create a loss of dignity. First, constant sedation of a patient becomes very costly. Whether the patient has insurance or paying out of packet, it is going to cost someone a lot of unnecessary money. Second, when a patient is being kept alive by heavy doses of medicine, they lose their sense of independence. The patient becomes confined to a hospital bed, their only outside contact is those who come to visit them. The patient can begin to feel like a burden on their loved ones, and euthanasia would reduce stress from the family. All of these struggles causes the patient to want their lives to come to an end.
Not only could euthanasia ease a lot of pain and suffering, it could also empower the terminally ill. Euthanasia does more than offers a way out for those who can no longer deal with pain and suffering, it offers them a choice. For many cases, a choice might be all a patient needs to gain the strength to continue fighting their illness. A choice can give them the piece of mind that the end can always be insight. With assisted suicide and euthanasia being illegal, there is a limited number of things that patents can do to fight their illness. Sure, they can take medicine or sign up for experimental surgery, but those are only short term fixes. They don’t have the freedom of choice when it comes to their own life. For a country that prides itself on the freedom it gives to its citizens, it takes away freedom from the one thing people should have complete control over, their life.
Work Cited
Guy, Maytal. “The Desire for Death in the Setting of Terminal Illness: A Case Discussion.” NCIB.gov. Primary Care Companion, 12 Feb. 2006. Web. 5 Apr. 2015.
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Counterintuitive Spring 2024 
feedback requested
Feedback provided. —DSH
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Casper, this is pretty thin for a free-standing essay. Granted, it’s more than many of your classmates posted for this assignment, but still, it will leave you with a lot of writing to do next week.
P1. Considering there are only two paragraphs, I would hope to find many bold and persuasive claims in each, but you spend most of your first paragraph unanswering nonquestions. The only true claim is in the final sentence, and it amounts to: terminally-ill patients seriously consider euthanasia.
You don’t actually identify them as terminally ill. And you don’t actually help readers understand the option. Euthanasia isn’t something the patient can even consider. It would be an action taken by others to shorten the patient’s life. Assisted suicide might be an option, but you didn’t say that, or explain how it could occur.
P2. You’re sounding a theme here that first appeared in the first paragraph, trying to represent the position of healthy people. Your “the argument is made” is a passive way to say everybody but the sick person thinks the patient is weak, or cowardly, or a complainer.
Now, for the causes you cite. 1) Painkillers are expensive. 2) Pain sedation costs the patients their independence. 3) They feel isolated. 4) They feel like a burden.
I have several reactions. They’re all true. They don’t require research. Painkillers aren’t necessarily the cause of 2, 3, or 4. They’re all negative reasons to end a life: there’s no empowering aspect to any of them. Let’s stop the cost, end the isolation, ease the burden. Nowhere in these does the patient make a positive choice. Isn’t there positive causation as well? Don’t some choose assisted suicide before they’re totally debilitated? In fact, don’t they need to be cognizant and capable in order to access assisted suicide?
I’m entirely in favor of brief arguments, casper, but not when they’re incomplete. I don’t think enough of your learning is represented here.
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Maybe a better title would be.. “The Reasoning Behind Euthanasia”
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First sentence: “Imagine suffering immensely and not being able to free yourself from the pain.”
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I like YDKWIA’s recommendation that you try to personalize the argument by challenging readers to imagine themselves terminally ill with no prospects for a pleasant future.
The questions I included for you in “Help That Hurts” were intended to get you (and your classmates) thinking about ways to improve your argument. They were:
1. Can you tell what the Author is trying to prove (single effect with many causes? single cause with many effects?)? If so, explain what the Author is trying to prove.
My Answer: I can tell that you’re trying to offer reasons in favor of euthanasia, but you miss an opportunity to make positive arguments in favor of human rights, empowerment, freedom from government interference, elimination of needless suffering . . . .
2. In what way(s) does the Author fail to make a persuasive Cause/Effect case?
My Answer: The cost argument is trivial for most cases in which assisted suicide would be an option. People end up on long-term, expensive, insanely unrealistic medical regimens who could never have been good candidates for assisted suicide. Research would resolve this question for you.
3. What causes or effects have been omitted or neglected?
My Answer: Laws against AS limit rights, freedoms, legitimate jurisdiction over one’s own body and property.
4. Imagine you’re a member of a jury deciding whether euthanasia should be legal based on the arguments here. In what ways does the evidence and reasoning fall short of convincing you?
My Answer: The cost argument would fail for me. The loss of independence is trivial compared to the loss of the right to choose when to AVOID total dependency. For me, the burden argument will never be persuasive because it’s way too subjective and vulnerable to abuse. Sure the 100-year-old parent is a burden; but so is the 1-year-old child.
Is any of this helpful?
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feedback please
regrade
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