The Relative Meaning of Life

When the highlight of a terminally ill patients day is a lull in the suffering, death is a salvation. However, today we refuse to give patients experiencing unimaginable amounts of pain, suffering, and loss of dignity the right to end their lives. Stephen Hawking addressed the topic saying, “We don’t let animals suffer, so why humans?” If we as a society feel so strongly about putting animals out of their misery, why not our loved ones? It could be said that animals, in this regard, are treated with more compassion than humans.

A counter-intuitive way to think about life is closeness to death. Usually we think life as the length someone has been alive, but what about how near somebody is to dying. A healthy ninety-year-old man, in this scenario, is younger than a thirty-year -old man with stage four lung cancer. The ninety-year-old man, given his health, and coherence at this age, is going to live for perhaps another decade. The thirty-year-old only has a month or two to live, so he is closer to death in theory. The ninety-year-old lived a longer life, but his life is not going to die within the foreseeable future, the thirty-year-old has no chance. By this token, why are we more willing to allow an elderly person fitting the conventional definition of old age die without being kept alive by machines than a younger individual who is on his death bed as well? It is not exactly a deliberate attempt to make someone suffer, rather than it is a way of keeping someone in this world, at least in body, not so much in mind or emotion.

If a patient lies in a hospital bed completely unresponsive regardless of age, he isn’t alive, he’s just there. An image of the man he was before, the man who lies in that bed was once able to feel joy, sorrow, fear, and any other emotion conceivable. The man who could also share memories of family gatherings, his eldest son’s wedding, the birth of his first grandchild, and the man who could smile, embrace his loved ones, and crack jokes. Having the capacity to feel, touch, experience, that is what life is. Imagine life without these things, what is it then? It’s not anything worth being a part of.  Our loved one laying on that bed isn’t who he was before he fell into this condition, he’s just there to fool our eyes into believing he is still capable of our naive determination of life.

Usually if a person is left to die of their terminal disease, it ends in them being in a vegetative state, or a state where very limited brain activity is present. Those in vegetative states cannot open their eyes, speak, move, respond, or eat by themselves. According to Merck “a vegetative state is suggested by characteristic findings (eg, no purposeful activity or comprehension) plus signs of an intact reticular formation.” This means the person is not aware of anything that is happening. It is absurd to let someone suffer until they are put in that kind of state.

With that thought in mind, many middle-aged people are starting to draft and agree to legal documents that we use to make known our wishes regarding life prolonging medical treatment, called a “living will,” or sometimes a “health care directive.” Living wills exist as a guideline for healthcare professionals to follow in the case that the will-writer falls into a permanently incapacitated state. These documents only are taken into consideration when two doctors determine that either the owner of the will has a terminal illness, or is in a vegetative state. People who draft these documents want to be in control of their life, and realize the importance of writing their wishes where they can be clearly understood.

More and more people coming into the later stages of their life are deciding that their wish is to let their life end naturally, and when the world wills it. These are the people who truly understand what life is. Those brave, enlightened individuals who can look their son, daughter, wife, or husband in the eye and say, “I have come to terms with the fact that death is always imminent and I want to accept it with dignity when my time comes. Do not allow me to be kept breathing by a machine.” It’s those people who recognize how precious life is, and do their best to allow each day to be full of fun, love, compassion, and learning.

Taking this idea a step further, some of us believe that if death falls upon us, and will distort the way of life we have always been accustomed to, that life is not worth continuing, so hastening death is the best way to assure the most comfortable way for us and our families to deal with this inevitably traumatic experience.

Today, many terminally ill patients are searching for a way to end that suffering and agony that controls every facet of their lives after being diagnosed with a terminal, debilitating illness. The recent controversial answer has been physician assisted suicide, or “death with dignity.” Death with dignity allows for a terminally ill patient to end their lives before their ailment reaches a more serious, even more debilitating state. Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis, and end stage cancer are all terminal diseases that cannot easily be stopped. Death with dignity is a completely humane process and has an overwhelmingly positive effect for all involved. Among other overwhelming positive effects, the odds of failed suicides are greatly reduced when a physician is in charge of administering a lethal dose of medication to a patient, rather than someone trying on their own because that is the only option he has left.

Surprisingly enough, euthanasia and assisted suicide have an extremely long history. Ancient Greeks and Romans were supportive of assisted suicide, abortions, and infanticides. However, from then until the recent century, assisted death was smothered by religion and even WWII, when Hitler and the Third Reich exterminated millions of people. Mass traumas regarding death throughout this era made people extremely squeamish to the topic at hand. In the 1980’s however, the California Natural Death Act was passed,  this allowed for life extending forms of healthcare to be denied by the patient, for example eating, breathing machines, etc. Soon after, eight states followed in California’s footsteps. (Historical Timeline)

Perhaps the greatest step forward in Death With Dignity came with Jack Kevorkian. Kevorkian was a pathologist,  and assisted suicide expert. He published 30 journal articles on the subject, and gained national attention for his profound actions. In 1990, 54-year-old Janet Atkins, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease searched for help from Kevorkian to end her suffering. Kevorkian invented a “death machine” that he used to administer a painkiller, then a poison to Atkins, which caused her heart to stop, and her to pass away.

Kevorkian’s methods where similar to the methods used today. Kevorkian required patients to make a levelheaded decision before he would actually end their lives. Actually, Kevorkian’s Death Machine was basically the same way Physician Assisted Suicides are done today. Instead of a machine, however, the patient takes barbiturates in pill, or liquid form, which makes them slip into a coma, and peacefully pass away. In Kevorkian’s method, the patient first took a painkiller to sedate themselves, then a kind of poison to stop their heart. Both ways are very peaceful, and in the end successful.

Kevorkian was arrested in the murder of Atkins, but was not charged because Michigan didn’t have a clear stance on the issue. However, Kevorkian’s death machine was prohibited, and his medical license was revoked, but he still assisted many in deaths with a new machine that he cleverly called the Mercitron, which administered CO2 gas which caused his patients to suffocate due to lack of oxygen. Along with several more legal battles, Kevorkian managed to end the suffering of over 130 terminally ill patients from 1990-1998, and is revered as an influential symbol of assisted suicide in this country.

According to the Death with Dignity Organization, three U.S states have “Death With Dignity” laws already in place, Washington, Oregon, and Vermont.  Two states, Montana, and New Mexico have found Physician Assisted Suicide to not have any statute in the States Constitution, so there is no law saying it is illegal, but no law to determine if it is legal as well. Even more promising, 26 States are drafting Death with Dignity Laws and are being deliberated in the respective state’s Senates. Internationally, the countries of Switzerland, Belgium, and the Netherlands all completely allow assisted dying, and Canada even lifted its ban on Assisted Death.  Unfortunately, some still believe that physician assisted dying is morally wrong and refuse to allow it to pass as law in the United States.

Most notably, Belgium has recently allowed a child euthanasia law to be passed. This allowed for children born with terminal diseases may be put to rest. This reinforces the fact that age can be seen as a “distance from death.” Regardless of the length of life, a death with dignity should be a right every man, woman, and child are given.

Mary E. Harned, the author of The Dangers of Assisted Suicide, and staff counselor of the Americans United for Live organization is one of those people.

Mary explains that “euthanasia advocates wrongfully claim that assisted suicide is “needed” for those terminally ill patients who face, or fear, great pain. But most experts in pain management believe that 95 to 98 percent of such pain can be relieved.”

There is a huge difference between assisting someones wishes, and just killing them because they are going to die anyway. Choice is the main distinguishing factor. Those who support death with dignity simply believe that suffering isn’t humane, and something should be implemented to prevent end of life suffering. Even accepted and successful movements, such as Animal Rights Activists, believe in this simple principle as well. Very telling is  is her belief that the reason people choose a death with dignity is because the pain is too much to handle. It’s fair to say that nearly everybody knows that even the most severe pain can be relieved by drugs. Doctors can prescribe anyone with pain some sort of medication to ease the pain, but those painkillers don’t change the fact that the patient still has stage four lung cancer and is going to die within the next two weeks anyway. The reason so many people turn to death with dignity is so that in their dying minutes they are not so heavily sedated by painkillers that they can’t even function, or are hooked up to five different life support machines as they lie lifeless on a hospice bed, but so that they can have some sense of dignity, feel surrounded with compassion from family members, and end the suffering that comes with their ailment.

A powerful message is sent when we think about our family pets, and even all animals for that matter, and compare it to the way we treat other humans. All throughout our lives we are trained to treat animals with mercy, and compassion. If we see a deer laying on the side of the road suffering after being hit by a car and are brave enough to do something about it, we aren’t  taught to let that animal lay there until it starves, or is attacked by a predator on the side of the road, we are taught mercy. We put the deer out of its misery and end its life quickly and humanely. Our household pets are treated with the same mercy. If our pets develop cancer, can’t eat, drink, and walk on their own, we put them down because it’s the right thing to do. So as Hawking so perfectly explained, why do we as a society refuse to treat humans the same way?

The strongest counter-argument is that Physician Assisted Suicide is something that will be abused by doctors. Perhaps that is a valid fear in today’s corrupt society, but there is nothing here that can be abused. If a people want to end their lives, that in no way advances the best interest of doctors or healthcare professionals. It actually takes revenue away from them, by hastening death one would also hasten, and lessen the hospital bills. So, why is letting this important decision of terminally ill patients to end their lives go opposed? Laws are in place in this country that enforce every man, woman, and child to have some sort of healthcare plan. If our nation can successfully do that and have it be made law, we can successfully create a sound set of laws that allow for a dying patient to hasten their death. Although many things of course do need to be considered, and worked out in terms of allowing an individual to seek medical help to end their lives, there should be a national program in effect that allows people fitting into certain, obviously predetermined category, to end their lives without being challenged by law. In fact at least 3 states, possibly soon more, there are categories and programs that pass the reasonableness test and have set a foundation for the rest of the country. No matter how we look at life, or what we think is right or wrong, the only person that should have a grasp on someones life choices are that individual whose life is being considered.

Works Cited

“Assisted Suicide: 1. America.” BMJ: British Medical Journal 303.6800 (1991): 431. Web. http://www.aul.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dangers-assisted-suicide.pdf

Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 04 May 2015. http://www.biography.com/people/jack-kevorkian-9364141

“Canada’s Highest Court Has Overturned Ban on Assisted Suicide.” The Daily Signal. N.p., 09 Feb. 2015. Web. 04 May 2015. <http://dailysignal.com/2015/02/09/canadas-highest-court-overturned-ban-assisted-suicide/

“Death with Dignity Around the U.S.” Death with Dignity Around the U.S. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2015. http://www.deathwithdignity.org/advocates/national

“Historical Timeline – Euthanasia – ProCon.org.” ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2015. http://euthanasia.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=000022

“Stephen Hawking Backs Assisted Suicide For The Terminally Ill.” NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 04 May 2015. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/17/223475856/steven-hawking-backs-assisted-suicide-for-the-terminally-ill

“Vegetative State and Minimally Conscious State.” – Coma and Impaired Consciousness. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2015. http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/neurologic-disorders/coma-and-impaired-consciousness/vegetative-state-and-minimally-conscious-state