Counterintuitive Spring 2024

1.  Belgium Extends euthanasia laws to kids

BackGround

In this article, Time magazine describes the basics behind the passing of the law.  It goes into detail about the process in which it happened, the lead up to the passing of the las, and some general reactions to the law.

How I used It

I used this article to gain my basic knowledge of the subject. It gave me good details to the background of the law.  This article helped me to develop the base of my argument, and is where I started to develop my argument.

2. Legal Euthanasia for Children In Belgium: Will It Trigger Death Tourism?

Background

Forbes online discuses some of the arguments against the legalization of euthanasia. Specifically the reaction that it will cause Belgium to develop “Death Tourism”.  It goes into detail about some of the arguments for and against this theory.

How I used it

This article helped a lot in the rebuttal essay.  With is, I was able to start to refute many of the claims made by people protesting the law.  This helped to strengthen my arguments by showing arguments from the opposing arguments and successfully refute them.

3. Chilean girl appeals to president to be allowed to die

Background

A fourteen year old girl living in Chile, who suffers from a terminal disease, made a video asking her president if she was “allowed to die”.  The article give background information on the girl and her family, and also details about how the president reacted to the video.

how I used it

I used this article to strengthen my argument that euthanasia would allow terminally ill patients to escape the pain of their disease.  It gave me a perfect example of a patient that didn’t want to continue to live with their disease.

4. The cost of keeping the terminally ill alive

Background

Dr. Richard Meyer discusses the current medical practice of keeping terminally ill patents alive.  It takes about the large amounts of money used to do so.  It also goes into detail on why this amount of money is unnecessary.

How I used it

I used this article to strengthen my argument that without euthanasia, any treatment to terminal illnesses are not only very expensive, but unnecessary.  It gave me a good source that summed up the basic of that portion of my argument.

5. A deadly conflict of interest: why euthanasia in Belgium is so out of control

Background

This article provides a very anti-euthanasia prospective.  It suggests that euthanasia is unregulated and there for “out of control”.  It attacks the ethics of euthanasia, and also the laws legalizing it.

How I used it

I used this article to gain prospective of the opposing view of my argument.  It gave me insight on the arguments against euthanasia, as well as a way to refute that claims made.

6. The world needs to talk about child euthanasia

Background

This article outlines the global importance of the topic.  It talks about the passing of the law, as well as what it could mean to the rest of the world. It goes into detail about the ethics behind the topic, as well as possible repercussions.

How I used it

This source gave me further background and understanding of the topic.  It helped me to get a better, broader view of the subject, and helped to form my opinion on it.

7. Child euthanasia: Too hard to live, too young to die

Background

This article talks about some of the stipulations of euthanasia in Belgium. Specifically, the one saying the patient must have full knowledge in the decision they are making.  It argues that a child can not fully understand this decision, and also that the nature of children and teenagers makes it impossible for them to make a rational decision.

How I used it

I used this source to gain further insight on the opposing view of the argument.  It gave me another chance to refute some of the claims made, as well as gain knowledge on how people feel about the law allowing youth euthanasia.

For my research essay I wrote about how proving that happy life can be attained by a specific set of steps is not possible.  Many researchers claim that they have found a recipe for happiness while others claim that people can simply choose to be happy.  As a result, people who do not and cannot pursue that happiness, are shunned or taken in to be made happy.  The truth is that even with the best conditions, happiness can never really be guaranteed.

1. There’s More to Life Than Being Happy

Smith, Emily E. “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 09 Jan. 2013. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. This is a main source used to make the counterargument that happiness is based on meaning in life.

Background: Prominent Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl postulated that the pursuit of happiness had nothing to do with leading a meaningful life.   He found that being happy is about feeling good and lacking stress.  A lifestyle of “taking” was typically found to be a happier one.  People who have found meaning in life are usually giving and make sacrifices to happiness in order to benefit others.  The meaning derived from a selfless lifestyle comes from the sacrifice to something greater than oneself.  While happiness is temporary and fades, meaning lasts in life through the past and future.

How I Used It: This article will be used to display the counter-argument for being happy.  People who are happy aren’t necessarily selfish and people who are unhappy aren’t necessarily selfless.

2. The Economics of Immediate Gratification

Background: People today only act on short-term gains.  Regardless of how we feel about doing well in the long-term, short-term outcomes still govern our actions.  Do people really think about their own actions causing self-control issues in the future?

How Used It: This article provided background information on the self control aspect of the happiness counterargument.

3. Let the Happiness In

Williamson, Mark. “Let the Happiness In.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Ltd., 12 Apr. 2011. Web. Source used for the counterargument of proving happiness in society.

Background: Despite great strides in increasing the quality of life in developed countries over the last 50 years, people are still not happy.  People are also no longer trusting of one another as society has made people self-centered and caused social problems ranging from depression to the breakdown of the family unit.  However, if people changed their focus on helping and sacrificing for the people around them such as family, close friends, and community, people would be happier and healthier.

How I Used It: This article was used for the society and happiness counterargument.  I used it to disprove the notion that happiness can be achieved through focus on relationships and activities.

4. What would make a Happier Society?

“Connecting.” PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. Source counterargument for the happiness and social relationships.

Background: There are several specific factors that have an effect on whether a person is happy including Health, Income, Work, and Family.  The analysis of the slow decline in people happiness was shown to be a fall in the religious belief, leading to the increase in individualism.  Previously the unselfishness of man was shown to better fellow man, however the decrease in belief in a higher power undermines man’s obligation to help others.

How I Used It:  This article provided background information for the societal happiness and trust for the counterargument.

5. Connection and Happiness

Background: We need others to make us happy and to improve our quality of life.  Mutual relationships and friendships allow us to fulfill our fundamental social and emotional needs like validation of self worth, security, and assistance in times of need.  The happiness provided by companionship is lasting compared to other forms.

How I Used It: This article primarily makes claims concerning relationships and their relevance to a persons happiness.  I can use the claims and support to reinforce the idea that having greedy social status and material items doesn’t have a lasting effect on happiness.  While the selfless relationships that exist between people allow oneself a greater satisfaction with life.

6. Love People, Not Pleasure

Brooks, Arthur C. “Love People, Not Pleasure.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 July 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. A source providing background for the counterargument that happiness cannot be bought.

Background: Just because you aren’t happy doesn’t mean you are unhappy.  A main source for people’s general unhappiness may be that people get too caught up with the search for their own well being.  Reality TV has lead to shows where people are loved, hated, or simply recognized(fame) which allows those individuals to have other care about what they say or do.  This leads to the realization that intrinsic goals for life are more fulfilling that fame can provide.

How I Used It: I used this article to make the counter argument that giving and investing happiness in people doesn’t necessarily yield a happy life.  I used Abd al-Rahman as an example of the loving people not things argument.

7. How to Be Happy

Background: Living a happier life isn’t about removing unhappiness, its about focusing on positive events and goals in life.  Well being is defined as a state that allows one to thrive and flourish.  Happiness is about attaining an optimist attitude where one focuses on the positives in life than regretting the negatives.  Living a satisfying life is about balance between pleasant, good, and meaningful lifestyles.

How I Used It: This article gave background to the claims that one can be both unhappy and happy in life.  I used it to display the counter argument that we can simply be happy with an optimist attitude.  It also provides a clearer definition for “well being”.

8. Are you addicted to Unhappiness?

Sack, David, M.D. “Are You Addicted to Unhappiness?” Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers LLC, 5 Mar. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. Source providing counterargument that people prefer unhappiness to being happy.

Background: A basic aspect of human behavior is that we seek pleasure to avoid pain, yet people make choices that are intentionally made to cause unhappiness.  There is a shift to complain about their unhappiness and almost seem proud of it.  This behavior is counter intuitive and is supported by findings related to the feelings behind horror movie viewers and people who feel guilty or undeserving of happiness.

How I Used It: I used this article to display a counterargument that people have a choice in their happiness and that people genuinely prefer to be unhappy.

9.  The Journal of Positive Psychology Ad-Hoc Reviewers 2008

“The Journal of Positive Psychology Ad-Hoc Reviewers 2008.” The Journal of Positive Psychology 10.3 (2015): n. pag. Web. This source is used to provide a statistical quote for the meaning and happiness topic of the debate.

Background: A study published surveyed 400 Americans 18-75 asking whether their lives felt meaningful or happy.  From the data the authors reached the conclusion that living a happy life is associated with being a “taker” while a meaningful life a “giver.”

How I Used It: I used it in the form of quoted material, for my counterargument against happiness being selfish.  The article claimed that the happiness can signify a selfish or shallow life.

10. What ‘marshmallow Test’ Can Teach You about Your Kids – CNN.com

Hadad, Chuck. “What ‘marshmallow Test’ Can Teach You about Your Kids – CNN.com.” CNN. Cable News Network, 22 Dec. 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2015. This source is used for the background for the marshmallow test results for self control and happiness.

Background: CNN conducted a report examining the principles, theory, and findings behind the marshmallow test.  The test, conducted by Dr. Walter Mischel, explored the self control of children and its findings showed profound indications on how they would make decisions throughout their lives.

How I Used It: I used this as a counterargument for the self control aspect of the paper.  The findings were not definitive therefore the arguments that use it as evidence that people who made the “right” decision in the test will lead happier lives.

11. How to Be Happy: 15 Common Habits

Ciotti, Gregory. “How to Be Happy: 15 Common Habits.” Sparring Mind RSS. Sparring Mind, 11 Sept. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. This source is used as an example of research supporting a variety of lifestyle changes that would improve happiness.

Background: Happiness is very abstract therefore the closest one can get to postulating happiness is to observe patterns of behavior in people.  There are 15 habits typically exhibited by happy people.  They are thinking of oneself less, being busy but not rushed, having a few close relationships, being proactive about relationships, moving beyond small talk, enjoying the little things in life, spend time and money on experiences, setting goals, show appreciation for others, mastering skills, changing perspectives, exercise, and don’t waste time.

How I Used It: I used this argument to demonstrate that enough evidence can be used to prove a vague generalization about happiness.  The points and research outlined in the article also provides background for the rest of the arguments.

12. Health Is Our Authentic Wealth: 7 Tips to Make Positive Lifestyle Changes.

Serenity, Channa. “Health Is Our Authentic Wealth: 7 Tips to Make Positive Lifestyle Changes.” MindBodyGreen. MindBodyGreen, LLC., 06 Aug. 2012. Web. 02 Mar. 2015. This source is used as evidence that what makes people happy cannot be solely based on diet and exercise.

Background: An article about how lifestyle and health can lead to a happier life.  There are seven points that lead to a happier and healthier life, Attitude, Environment, Dedication, Making Health a Habit, Be Open to new things, Discernment, and Support.  The topic of the entire article is that Health is Our Authentic Wealth.

How I Used It: I used this article as a counter argument that a healthy diet exercise regimen can provide a happy life.  The article focuses exclusively on how exercise can give one a happy life.

Bibliography

The Study of Human Memory

Background: Memory stretches back at least 2,000 years to Aristotle’s early attempts to understand memory. An 18^th Century English philosopher David Hartley was the first to hypostasize that memories were encoded through hidden motions in the nervous system. However, not until the mid-1880s a young German philosopher Herman Ebbinghaus developed the first scientific approach of studying memory. Many researchers and philosophers and are mentioned in this piece.

How I Used It:  I  used Elizabeth Loftus studies, an American cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory.  This article showed me the understanding on how false memories and misinformation can effect eyewitness information.  Memory isn’t something we can hold in our hand, it’s a mental process that is very hard to explain.

Memory Encoding

Background: Encoding is an important first step to creating a new memory. It allows the perceived item of interest to be converted into a construct that can be stored within the brain, and then recalled later from short-term or long-term memory. The process of memory begins with attention regulated by parts of the brain in which a memorable event causes neurons to release, making the experience more intense and increasing an event of memory.

How I Used It:  I didn’t use this information I read about memory encoding so I would have an understanding of how the brain processes information.  What triggers memory recall.

How many of your memories are fake?

Background: This article illustrates the study of people with highly superior Autobiographical Memory-those who can remember dates, time of the event the day of the week.  New studies show people with phenomenal memory are susceptible to having  “false memories,” suggesting that “memory distortions are basic and widespread in humans, and it may be unlikely that anyone is immune.”

How I Used It:   deeper into the studies of false memories how can one person remember dates and events that happened years ago and quizzed on an event that happened 15 minutes ago and have no recollection?

How Much of Your Memory Is True?

Background: New research is showing memories are constantly being re-written. Rita Magil was in a horrible car accident.   She recovered, but was plagued by the memories of cement barriers coming towards her when she was doing simple household chores such as cooking. More than a year after her accident, Magil saw Brunet’s ad for an experimental treatment for PTSD, and she volunteered. She took a low dose of a common blood-pressure drug, propranolol, that reduces activity in the amygdala, a part of the brain that processes emotions.

How I Used It:  Is Brunet on to something and able to re-write long-term memory. I will research some long-term memory studies and compare my findings and beliefs if there is an explanation to false memories.

Listen The BBC Radio Show On Eyewitness Accounts

Background: During the broadcast the presenter, Dr. Raj Persaud finds out how difficult it is to recall something accurately when he takes part in a memory recall experiment. He also talks to Andrew Rolph former police officer and Manager of the Identification Bureau for the Grampian Police, about the issues surrounding the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

How I Used It:  Reviewed video for claims and argue unreliable claims apply new techniques to extracting information from eyewitness.

What is Muscle Memory

Background:  “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”  If you are learning the wrong techniques, studying the wrong material or practicing a song and singing the wrong words.  The key to a good memory is quality not quantity.

How I Used It:   Enhancing new techniques by using the right methods to extract information from an eyewitness.  How behavior test can validate memory.

Memory

Background: Eyewitness testimony is retrieved in stages.  Witnessing the incident, waiting period before giving the evidence, giving the evidence.

How I Intend to Use It: Information will support each stage of retrieval  and look for new ways to extract information, timing, environment, smells, emotions.

How to Improve Eyewitness Testimony

Background:  The more you remember an event the less reliable it becomes. Eyewitness should only have only seconds to remember a event.

How I Used It:  Research the timing of eyewitness testimony.  Questioning an eyewitness immediately after the event.  When it comes to the memory more deliberation is dangerous. I used this information in my first rebuttal that turned out to be more of the opposite than an argument.

How To Make Eyewitness Testimony More Reliable

Background: Eyewitness testimony is one of the most powerful forms of evidence in a trial. It’s also one of the most problematic; in fact, it’s “the number one cause of wrongful convictions,” says Daniel Medwed.  Medwed is a law professor at Northeastern and a member of the new Standing Committee on Eyewitness Identification, which was recently convened by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The committee is charged with devising police and court procedures that take into account the central lesson of research on eyewitness testimony: “Our memories of what we see aren’t static. They’re elastic and malleable and change over time,” Medwed says.

How I Used It:  Extracted techniques that can be used to enhance to reliability of eyewitness testimony.

Emotions Affect Memory Reliability

Background:  Leading memory theories claim that adults remember negative events better than children and have fewer false memories resulting from them.

How I Used It:  I planned on using this information to write about  childhood memories and as my research grew my topic changed.  Interesting piece of information is when an experience has negative emotional qualities, true memory levels are lowest and false memory levels are highest.  This could be a contributing factor to misidentification.

“152 Marked Innocent, Marked for Death”

Background: New York times did a piece on 152 innocent people that were on death row. The article references how prosecutors want to win a case and will coerce their witnesses.

How I Used It:  Reference the cases that were based on false testimony.   Used examples provided by the “macarbe club.”  Cited two of the cases that I found to be good examples to share with my readers.

“How Many Innocent People Have We Sent To Prison?”

Background:  This article was about a woman by the name of Beverly Monore who spend seven years in a Virginia prison for a crime she didn’t commit.  The  information that intrigued me was uncovering the exonerationregistry.org data.

How I Used It:  I used the information in this article to educate my readers about the website and the data that has been collected.  Mostly to show the percentages of convictions based on eyewitness testimony.

Implanting False Memories and How Our Brains Trick Us

Humans rely tremendously on memory because it impacts everything, including the way people feel, think, and behave. However, human memory isn’t always reliable. It’s counterintuitive to believe our minds can cognitively distort and store information in different ways, in which we may not be aware of.

It’s true that people often tend to embellish stories and over exaggerate to capture an audience’s attention, yet we’re usually aware when we’re doing this. When people recall memories and talk about those experiences with people, we have confidence in our ability to recall past events and recite what happened in clear detail. However, there are many times when humans recall false memories, without acknowledging it. Eveleth explains,

People tend to think of their memories as a transcript, a rough history of events from some early age until the very moment they are experiencing. But human memory is far more like a desert mirage than a transcript—as we recall the past we are really just making meaning out of the flickering patterns of sights, smells and sounds we think we remember.

So, how are we able to believe false memories?

The creation of Photoshop, image-editing software, allows images to be realistically manipulated. Photoshop can change the appearance of someone online VS. the real-life appearance of a person, political campaigns through fake imagery, and the way humans remember things. It’s much easier for a person to believe physical evidence which matches a person’s experience, rather than listening to a person talk. People often believe Photoshopped images to be true because those images get cognitively stored in the brain, while other factual information is lost. The images don’t distort the past, but they do effect our current and future behavior. It’s also much easier for a person to remember a fake memory from the past by using a childhood memory and Photoshop software.

The author of the article, Rose Eveleth, provided examples of various Photoshopped pictures that stirred up controversy. An example include a “faked protest” showing Senator John Kerry and Jane Fonda together at an anti-Vietnam War rally emerged during the 2004’s US election, which never actually happened. Another example includes a “reluctant rocket” when Iran’s show of military power was doctored to remove a launcher which failed to fire in 2008. Instead, the faulty launcher was replaced with a fourth projectile. The creation of Photoshop and ability to edit important historic events for different purposes, can be very dangerous. By providing a false, yet believable sense of reality through doctored photos, people could easily believe events that never occurred. We, as people, don’t like admitting what we witness to be wrong, by making us question our sense of judgment and reliability. The use of Photoshop for political campaigns and government purposes, will leave people feeling confused. The process of manipulation and implementation of false memories is very possible and counterintuitive to believe, considering people have confidence in their memory abilities.

In 2002, Wade and psychologists conducted an experiment with implanting false memories. “The question was whether showing subjects a doctored photograph with no supporting narrative, would lead them to remember a false experience” (Garry and Gerrie, P. 2) The psychologists cut-out photographs of each individual participant and digitally altered the subjects’ pictures onto a hot air balloon ride. The edited photo was combined with three real-life, unaltered photos, in a pile to observe. Next, participants carefully observed the photos for two weeks. The psychologists created fake background details about the balloon ride experiment that the participants never actually experienced when they were children and tried convincing the participants of the unique experience. At the end of the two week experiment, 50% of the subjects were convinced they experienced a balloon ride with their family as a child. Some subjects even created their own elaborate details about this false event and how much fun they had on the balloon ride. With the help of photo editing software and persuasion, psychologists were able to implant false childhood memories over a two week time span.

In a 2014 study conducted by Linda Henkel, a professor of psychology at Fairfield University, suggests taking photographs can actually impair our memory. In the study, participants were asked to walk around an art museum and either take pictures or observe the art around them. The participants remembered fewer details of the artwork they photographed VS. the artwork they observed. (Wayne)

Dr. Henkel said in an interview:

“In general, we remember the photographs. It’s like the family stories we tell. There’s the original experience, and then the story everyone tells every Thanksgiving. The story becomes exaggerated, a schema of the original event. The physical photo doesn’t change over time, but the photo becomes the memory.”

We believe memory begins with our personal experience. What someone tells us happened could never have the same reality for us as what we ourselves lived through. But astrophysicist, Carl Sagan, insists there’s a technique for making people believe that they actually experienced things they’ve never lived through. Sagan describes the process of instilling false memories in his book, The Demon-Haunted World. The very idea contradicts our understanding of what memory is.

In Pomeroy’s article, Sagan broke down the manipulative process in four steps: 1. select one of your mates, 2. fabricate a memory, 3. prepare, and 4. set your plan in motion. I was able to apply Sagan’s theory to my own personal experience with my father.

I am able to vividly remember the day my parents got divorced. I was only five years old, but the memory is forever burned in the back of my mind. I remember the velvety green couches in the living room, the way my mom’s watery eyes analyzed my every move as my parents explained the situation to me, the typical “it’s not your fault, sweetie,” speech that all divorced parents give their children. As I grew up, it was apparent that one of the main reasons behind my parents’ divorce was father’s alcohol dependency.

Since I was young enough to remember, I’ve always dealt with my father’s drinking problem. The Sagan experiment avoids big life-changing events because of ethical concerns, but real life plays by different rules. My father would manipulate my memory and constantly tell me “Everything is going to be okay,” and “I’ve been clean for months now, I’m not going to pick up another bottle ever again.” He would make me feel foolish for “unnecessary worrying,” well, that’s what he’d call it. I’d always believe him, even if his previous promises have failed me numerous times. Why wouldn’t I believe him? I mean, he’s my dad, and I trusted him. On many occasions when my father would end up in the hospital after excessive drinking, he would create elaborate stories on why he ended up in the hospital, covered in wounds. Some stories would include the flu, to dehydration, to ‘unknown’ sicknesses, trying to shelter me from the harsh truth. These false stories altered my awareness and made me believe my dad remained sober but just got “sick” easily. At a young age, my perception of reality was able to be easily manipulated through my dad’s made-up stories. However, as I grew older, my reality changed and I was aware that my father wasn’t randomly sick with the flu or the stomach virus, he was suffering from the effects of relapsing, yet again. Every time my father relapsed, I felt uncontrollable pain dealing with my inability to help him. I would spend hours providing useful advice and the best possible strategies to help control his addiction urges, and it wouldn’t work.

For years I wondered why and how my dad could deliberately lie about the circumstances he was in to me. I couldn’t comprehend how my dad could drink again after the alcohol contributed to the divorce, which broke my family apart. I wondered how my dad could stare into my bloodshot eyes and lie to me after seeing me cry. However, I began to realize that my dad created this false reality of him being “okay” to try and help me be okay. I know my sister and I are the best things in my father’s life, and it hurt him deeply to lie to us but he didn’t want the truth to hurt us even more without us fully understanding what his addiction was like. Now I finally understand, my father was trying to protect my sister and I. Afterwards, I was able to forgive my father for his lies, which improved our relationship tremendously throughout the years. My father has been able to get the help and treatment he needs to sustain a healthy, alcohol-free lifestyle. I also understand, thanks to Sagan, that my father wanted to alter my perception of reality to benefit me. After interpreting a situation differently, my viewpoint has changed and positively impacted my life. I took on my father’s viewpoint and realized many things that I wasn’t able to comprehend before. My memory of the past events has even shifted with new information.

The effect of claiming to have witnessed a person do something can lead a person to make a false confession of wrongdoing. This effect was demonstrated in a study by Saul M. Kassin and colleagues at Williams College. According to author Elizabeth Loftus, When innocent participants were accused by the experiment’s confederate for pressing the wrong key, which “damaged” a computer, the individuals denied the charge. However, social demands later changed the views of those individual into believing they actually did the guilty action.

How is this possible?

Social demands play an important role when implanting false memories. The pressure exerted by researches on the participants encouraging them to remember and confess to a guilty action they didn’t commit, caused participants to justify their actions. The participants feel the need to confess because an authority figure is accusing them of a guilty action, and in the minds’ of the participants, the authority figure wouldn’t lie, and therefore, the thought- “I must have committed the false behavior.” The unfamiliar setting, such as a therapeutic location, also plays a role on the participants confessing by impacting the participants’ nerves. An unfamiliar place can often effect judgement and behavior.

This technique of authority figures pressuring individuals to confess, even for an innocent crime, can be found in real-life examples such as our judicial system in the United States. Innocent people are encouraged to confess to a suspected crime, regardless if proven guilty or not, to reduce the amount of time he/she will spend behind bars with a lighter sentence. The technique raises the question of whether implanting false memories and using pressure of authority figures is ethical when dealing with the lives of others.

People can be led to remember their past in different ways, and even remember entire events that never happened to them. We are often confident with our abilities to recall past experiences, but psychological findings such as the ones stated above, provide insight on how the human mind can often fool us.

 Work Cited

Eveleth, Amy. “How Fake Images Change Our Memory and Behavior.” FUTURE. BBC, 13 Dec. 2012. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121213-fake-pictures-make-real-memories

Pomeroy, Steven. “How to Instill False Memories.” Scientific American. Scientific American, 19 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2015. <http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/02/19/how-to-instill-false-memories/&gt;.

Loftus, Elizabeth. “Creating False Memories.” Scientific American, 1 Sept. 1997. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm&gt;.

Garry, Maryanne, and Matthew Gerrie. “When Photographs Create False Memories.” Current Directions In Psychological Science. American Psychological Society, 1 Jan. 2005. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.mccc.edu/~jenningh/Courses/documents/PSY101_journalpacket_2008_000.pdf&gt;.

Wayne, Teddy. “Shutterbug Parents and Overexposed Lives.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Feb. 2015. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/style/shutterbug-parents-and-overexposed-lives.html&gt;.

“Can Marshmallows Predict a Child’s Future or is it Just a Tasty Treat?”

The Marshmallow Test was a study of nursery children to see if they had the ability to challenge their temptations. A marshmallow was put in front of them on a plate and the child had two options-to either wait fifteen minutes and receive another, or to eat the marshmallow right away. Many children have a difficult time restraining their needs, and not realizing what the consequences might be in the future. Children, especially nursery aged, do not know or realize that they have or can have willpower. Some might have it without realizing. For example, if a child does wait those fifteen minutes to receive another marshmallow, they are resisting their temptations no matter how hard it is.

Willpower is to have control of one’s impulses and actions; self-control. However, willpower is also “the ability to resist short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals.” In this case, children who were able to resist eating the first marshmallow were seen as having the ability to better stay in relationships when they were older. For instance, if a person can resist cheating on their partner, it can give them the ability of being loyal to him/her. The short temptations would be the cheating and the long-term goal would become loyal and perhaps starting a future together. But the question is why can some people resist their temptation, while others cannot? Suppose an individual needed to make some fast money and had two options in mind, having a healthy and steady job and having the salary $8 an hour or seeking out a secretive “spot” to help drug addicts fight their withdrawal symptoms making $1000 a day. The natural human instinct is to make the most money in a short amount of time, but what people do not realize in their moment of decision, is their long-term goals in contrast to short-term temptations.

For children to recognize this concept and understand how they can apply it to their everyday decisions can have a major impact on their lives and shapes them as individuals. According to Marina Chaparro, RD, one of the best things about willpower is that growing self-control in one areas of your life leads to other positive changes. Willpower changes the way people think. For instance, going to the gym may lead to eating healthier. Willpower is not innate, however it is similar to a muscle in a body where it can be strengthen over time. Yet, unlike muscles, willpower can be affected by emotions. If the child had a tough day, he/she might just eat the first marshmallow to make his or her day seem a bit better. Short-term temptations are diseases, cravings, thoughts that are turned into actions without rethinking about what the outcomes might be.

Children who were able to resist eating the first marshmallow grew up into teenagers who received higher SAT scores and were seen as having the ability to better stay in relationships than the children who ate the marshmallow in the first thirty seconds. The man behind this 1960’s experiment goes by the name of Dr. Walter Mischel, who in fact noticed that the children who were able to wait for the second marshmallow displayed creative ways of distracting themselves. The distractive behaviors suggest that the children with greater willpower have a higher sense of creativity. The results were incredible; the preschoolers who were able to control their temptations have a lower BMI, lower rates of addiction, a lower divorce rate and were able to conquer stress in their future. However, Mischel does not lose any faith in the preschoolers who immediately ate the first marshmallow saying, “I have no doubt that self-control skills … are imminently teachable.”

For instance, “If you’re a smoker and as you approach the cigarette you’re thinking lung cancer … and imagining it very vividly, your picture of your lung with a black spot and your physician telling you ‘I’m so sorry to have to tell you etc.’ that visualization can be very powerful,” said Mischel. Mischel believes that techniques of self-control can be taught and learned at any age. But the question is why can some people resist their temptation, while others cannot? Suppose an individual needed to make some fast money and had two options in mind, having a healthy and steady job and having the salary $8 an hour or seeking out a secretive “spot” to help drug addicts fight their withdrawal symptoms making $1000 a day. The natural human instinct is to make the most money in a short amount of time, but what people do not realize in their moment of decision, is their long-term goals in contrast to short-term temptations.

The Marshmallow Test is in fact a study testing children’s’ willpower and their self-control. Willpower has many factors including the child’s parents, the environment they grew up around, and if they have the ability to trust. Waking up everyday to the same surroundings shapes the way people think and act, and the people show them who to trust and who to look past. Growing up in an environment where children only know that the norm of their society is to have things and items taken away from them will cause them to grow up with having extremely low expectations and little to no trust in anyone around them.

The beginning of this argument presents the “facts” dealing with this famous psychological test. However, it may have many parents fooled into thinking this test depicts their child’s entire future. A single, tempting marshmallow is placed in front of each preschooler in a blank room. Given two options, the child can immediately eat the marshmallow in front of them, or they can wait fifteen minutes until the instructor returns and rewarding them with a second marshmallow. As a result of this experiment, the results came to conclude that children who had the decency to wait the fifteen minutes grew up into teenagers who scored significantly higher on the SATs than the children who could not help satisfy their cravings.

Indeed, the data did conclude that the children who have self-control scored higher on the SATs, less likely to become divorced, and were prepared to handle stress in a better way. However, what most people, especially parents, are not told is that Mischel had only taken the results of 94 children out of the entire 550 who participated in this experiment. Mischel had only tracked down 94 SAT test scores, which is a small percentage of 17% of the entire population of the study. The correlation between a child being able to wait 15 minutes to receive a second marshmallow and their future test scores was negative, and did not go hand in hand with one another. Most of the children who participated in this study did not actually contribute in the original marshmallow test. Instead, “their marshmallow was covered from view, or they were given a pretend scenario to distract themselves with,” (Bronson and Merryman.) The original children who did the original were 35 children, 17 boys and 18 girls. These results came to be a third of the 35 children waited the full fifteen minutes, while only a minority of children ate the marshmallow almost immediately.

The famous Marshmallow Test conducted in the 1960s, about 55 years ago, came from 35 hungry and sugar-hyped children who could not wait to get their hands on the deliciously sweet snack. University of Connecticut, Inge Marie-Eigsti had attempted to replicate the findings and conclusions of Mischel’s study. Her team had successfully tracked down the children who had done the Marshmallow Task back in the 1990’s, except with cookies in replacement of the marshmallows. Her did found it ridiculous to ask for their SAT scores thinking they would not have much of a difference. The now 18-year-olds were given a full IQ examination. In addition to testing the teenagers’ IQs, Eigsti’s team also ran tests of “executive function” which is part of the brain that controls self-control. Their conclusions came to be the correlation between avoiding to eat the cookie when they were four year olds and their IQ or self-control at their current age was not interrelated at all.

Eigsti had found some surprising evidence from the data that was collected. Connected to Mischel, Eigsti had only a handful, five, children who ate the cookie almost immediately. Interestingly, these children demonstrated symptoms of ADHD. After 55 years of praising Mischel’s work for predicting the life of a preschooler, in actuality, the Marshmallow Test may have just been a test to see whether the child has Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Children with ADHD typically have symptoms that start to appear before the age of seven. The youngster’s, who cannot sit still, never listen, cannot follow directions or choose not to follow them, announce inappropriate comments may be known as the typical troublemaker, or they can have ADHD without any adult realizing until they are older. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder usually appears in early childhood but it is difficult to come to that conclusion. Helpguide has listed some facts about ADHD including:

“Some children with ADD/ADHD are hyperactive, but many others with attention problems are not. Children with ADD/ADHD who are inattentive, but not overly active, may appear to be spacey and unmotivated. Children with ADD/ADHD may do their best to be good, but still be unable to sit still, stay quiet, or pay attention. They may appear disobedient, but that doesn’t mean they’re acting out on purpose. ADD/ADHD often continues into adulthood, so don’t wait for your child to outgrow the problem. Treatment can help your child learn to manage and minimize the symptoms.”

Not all children with ADHD are hyperactive; some children may be the out of control child who cannot stop fidgeting or in constant motion, but others may experience a type of mellow approach to ADHD. Some children may sit quietly in the back of the classroom while having their mind wonder off into space and unable to stay focused on one thing. This may be the key answer as to why some children are able to resist eating the second marshmallow. These children may be able to distract themselves and not stay focused on the marshmallow for every second of the fifteen minutes.

Mischel had made many predictions and hypotheses about the outcomes that would result form this experiment. His description of children with insufficient development of the brain’s executive functions fit the descriptions of children with ADHD quite well. ADHD had been considered a problem in young boys who would not listen to their parents and would have behavior problems. Now, “it has been redefined as a developmental impairment of the brain’s self management system.” The preschoolers that Mischel had used for this experiment had done brain scans in their midlife. The results showed that those who had more difficulty in waiting proved differences in the brain functioning, which is extremely comparable to those found in children with ADHD. The preschoolers who had a hard time waiting for their second marshmallow had inherited difficulties in the brain’s executive functioning areas, most similar of those with ADHD. These children may seem as though impatient hungry children, which may just be the case. However, it can lead to more evidence in their impatient, fidgety behaviors that they experienced throughout their adult life as well as their preschool years.

Many brains scans have been performed on children who are suspected to have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. “The neuroimaging technique that has aroused the most interest among those suspected of having ADD is SPECT. This 20-minute test measures blood flow within the brain; it shows which brain regions are metabolically active (“hot”) and which are quiescent (“cold”) when an individual completes various tasks.” Many scientists have found that the people who have ADHD have a slower brain maturity rate. Their brains do not mature as quickly as they should. Scientists also discovered that certain areas of the brain are less or more active when performing a task with ADHD when compared to people who do not suffer from ADHD. According to the Marshmallow Test, those with high self-control also showed different brain patterns compared to those who had low self-control. For those who experience high self-control, researchers found that the prefrontal cortex becomes more active as opposed to those with low self-control; the ventral striatum shows a boost in activity. The world famous Marshmallow Test can still manipulate the minds of some parents, but it can all be a misunderstanding. The test may have been a test to see whether children are experiencing symptoms of ADHD without knowing. From the research presented, Walter Mischel’s Marshmallow Test does not correlate the resistance of a marshmallow to a child’s life accomplishments.

Works Cited

Smith, Melinda, Lawrence Robinson, and Jeanne Segal. “ADD / ADHD in Children.” : Signs and Symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder in Kids. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2015. <http://www.helpguide.org/articles/add-adhd/attention-deficit-disorder-adhd-in-children.htm&gt;.

Bronson, Po, and Ashley Merryman. “Just Let Them Eat the Marshmallow.” The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 19 Feb. 2010. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/02/19/just-let-them-eat-the-marshmallow.html&gt;.

Brown, Thomas E. “The Marshmallow Test,.” Psychology Today. N.p., 2 Dec. 2014. Web. 25 Apr. 2015. <https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-mysteries-add/201412/the-marshmallow-test-willpower-and-adhd-part-1&gt;.

Watson, Stephanie. “Worth 1,000 Words: What a Brain Scan Reveals About ADHD.” Healthline. N.p., 16 Sept. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/brain-scans#Results4&gt;.

Sherman, Carl. “Can Brain Scans Help Diagnose ADHD?” ADDitude Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/783.html&gt;.

Helping Heroin Addicts by Giving Them Free Heroin

In Vancouver, Canada, heroin has started to take over the drug community. With more and more people using heroin each day the government has been trying to come up with ways to help the addicts before the entire city is filled with heroin addicts. To help these addicts cope with addiction a clinic has opened up, called Insite, that will give addicts free heroin under the super vision of nurses and with the proper equipment to make sure the patients are safe from disease like HIV and hepatitis.

Not just anyone can get the free heroin offered by the clinic. The clinic is there as a last resort to people who have tried everything else and failed. Other places in Europe are using this method as a way to get their heroin problems under control. The clinics there are divided into three groups that patients belong too. There is a group that wants to cut back on heroin without completely quitting, a group that wants to get heroin the legal way without having to commit crimes, and addicts that just need a fix (Jeppe Wojcik, 2012).

The clinic is a form of harm reduction says Allen Schauffler, a Pacific Northwest Correspondent for Al Jazeera. The treatment is to reduce the likelihood of the patients ending up dead in an alley or breaking into someone’s home to rob them and get money for their habit says Schauffler. Getting the addicts off of heroin by using heroin doesn’t sound like a good way of doing it, but that’s not what this clinic in Vancouver is designed to do. It’s designed to control the crime rates that are associated with drugs like heroin. The addicts now have a place to get their guaranteed fixed without having to go and rob someone and possibly hurt or kill someone or themselves in the process.

Places in Europe have been successful in reducing their crime rates with this program. In a trial case in Europe a group of participants were spilt up in heroin addicts into three different groups and one they gave heroin too, and the other two received methadone. All three groups showed improvement in the lifestyles of the addicts, the heroin group showed the most improvement out of the three. The crime rate with those in the groups had dropped from 1700 in the first 30 days of the trial to 547 six months into the trial (Gaelle Faure/London, 2009).

Not only do these clinics help to lower the crime rates and help to make the streets safer by taking away the crime aspect in using heroin, but these clinics also improve the lives of the addicts as well. With addicts no longer having to worry about where their next dose of heroin is coming from, they are free to get back to their normal lives. Most heroin addicts find that it’s hard to support their habit and hold down a job as well. They are constantly worrying about heroin so nothing else matters to them. They are always thinking about where their next fix is coming from so they don’t have time for a job. When they run out of money and can’t afford their heroin they go and do things like rob people or places, prostitution, and other crimes to get their money for heroin. Now that all that is eliminated they can start to worry about themselves and their families. Katrine Schepelern Johansen, a post-doc in anthropology the University of Copenhagen says that “Some users have better contact with their families” and that some “have found the energy to take care of their physical illnesses.”

Johansen talks about the positive aspects of these heroin clinics that are operating in Europe as well as he negative aspects. Johansen says that the patients get frustrated because they have to go to the clinic twice a day every day of the week. Frustration with the addicts as well as the nurses that are supervising the addicts. The addicts have to inject themselves and the nurses are not allowed to help. When they are trying to shoot up the addicts can’t always find a vain which not only aggravates them but the nurses as well since they can’t help and can only watch the struggling patient in front of them.

Despite the frustration among the addicts in the treatment and the nurses that work there, these heroin clinics are usually regarded as successful because of the low dropout rate compared to other treatment centers. In Denmark, of the 26 that dropped out, the majority wanted to seek a treatment that did not involve heroin use as the form of medication being used (Jeppe Wojcik, 2009).

As good as these clinics are in accomplishing their goals of getting the addict’s lives back and lowering crime rates in the area, there are some down sides to giving out free heroin. In recent months at the heroin clinic in Vancouver, there have been several overdoses (Matt Schiavenza, 2014). The overdoses are believed to have been caused by a street-purchased drug called fentanyl. Fentanyl is a highly dangerous substance that looks like heroin and has been increasingly sold on the streets (Mark Hume, 2014). The clinic has trained staff that administer naloxone which is a medication that can reverse the effects of an overdose from opioids and save someone’s life. It’s hard to tell if the heroin that someone is using is mixed with fentanyl or is pure fentanyl. Dr. Jane Buxton, head of harm reduction at BC Centre for Disease Control, says that the rise of fentanyl is why clinics like the one in Vancouver are important. It is important to have someone around when using heroin or any drug who knows what to do in time of disaster. In three days there were 36 overdoses at Insite, says Gavin Wilson, a spokesman for Vancouver Coastal Health. The clinic, in an average week, has 10 to 12 overdoses. Of all the overdoses, thanks to the trained supervising staff, none have resulted in death (Mark Hume, 2014).

You have to take the good with the bad in this situation. The people that are going to these clinics, like the one in Vancouver are at the end of the line and have nowhere else to turn. Even though there are overdoses happening often they are being controlled and treated the correct way. The cause of the overdoses isn’t because of the clinic itself, but outside sources. When the addicts get used to getting their heroin from the clinics instead of the street, the number of overdoses will decrease and they can receive the benefits that the clinics have to offer. The clinics have more positive outcomes then negative. Trials have shown that they achieve what they set out to do. Crime rates are lowered in the areas and the people that are using see significant improvements in their lives.

By Vancouver opening up heroin clinics they are giving the addicts another chance to be a normal part of society and not someone who ends up dead with a needle in their arm. The clinics get their addiction under control and change their lives by giving them the sense of security they didn’t had before and taking away the stress they did have. Clinics like Insite are the last salvation for the addicts that were being controlled by heroin. The clinics not only help the individual get their life back, but also make their city safer by reducing the drug related crimes caused by these addicts that are now seeking treatment. It appeals to the users because they aren’t getting off one drug just to get addicted to another like other treatments such as methadone. They are getting their addiction under control by using the same drug that was causing their problems. As crazy as it sounds, giving heroin addicts free heroin helps the addicts more than it hurts them.

Work Cited

Wojcik, Jeppe. “Heroin Clinics Improve Addicts’ Lives.” Sciencenordic.com. Science Nordic, 1 May 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

“Vancouver Combats Heroin by Giving Its Addicts the Best Smack in the World.” Public Radio International. PRI, 9 Feb. 2015. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Faure, Gaëlle, and London. “Why Doctors Are Giving Heroin to Heroin Addicts.” Time. Time Inc., 28 Sept. 2009. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Schiavenza, Matt. “Vancouver Experiments With Prescription Heroin.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 23 Nov. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Hume, Mark. “Flood of Drug Overdoses in Vancouver Underscores Need for Greater Outreach.” The Globe and Mail. N.p., 16 Oct. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

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