It’s been 4 months since the car crash that has caused your husband to become brain dead. He is on a machine that is breathing for him and you know that he is in a great deal of pain. You keep asking for the doctors to pull the plug or give him meds to ease him into death, but euthanasia isn’t allowed where you live. Euthanasia is important because it will cause a lower amount of people who are suffering and in pain. Euthanasia should be legal in Indiana to end the suffering of terminally ill patients that are in unbearable pain and to leave the family of the person with less medical bills to pay. The first thing that needs to be done is the legalization of it.
Euthanasia should be legal in Indiana. There are several different types of euthanasia,
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If the treatment of a dying patient continues, the prices would keep going up and up. If the patient were allowed to die, it would save the family several thousand dollars. The patient would have to be tended to on a daily basis. It has been estimated that this care would cost about 2,000 to 10,000 dollars per month (LoneStar). In total, the cost for the treatment and care of the dying patient can reach up to $35,000 to $40,000 at least while the cost for the lethal drugs is only $35 (Life). Not only would Euthanasia save the family money, it would also make the taxpayer money be spent on better things than a dying person. According to Leeson, Medicare spends at least a quarter of their money on end-of-life care, which could be spent on other people (Live Action News). If the money is to be spent, why not spend it on organ transplants instead of a person who is going to inevitably die. If the dying person does euthanasia, there will be less money spent on their care and more money spent on other, more important things. For instance, in Oregon, Medicaid goes ahead and pays for the drugs for euthanasia instead of paying for the unnecessary care, thus saving taxpayer money (Live Action News). Basically, instead of the family having to pay for it, medicare can pay for it so that the family isn’t in debt because of treatment taking place that didn’t need
A little over nine years ago, a man succumbed to his thirty-year battle with multiple sclerosis. At the time of his death, his body bore little resemblance to the man who had once successfully coached two little league teams and held down three jobs. In the last year of his life, James Halsey decided that the debilitating cycle of drowning in his own internal body fluids, only to return to a state of awareness, no longer served his spirits and desires. Regrettably, he was not given the opportunity of a peaceful death. Instead, James spent the last days of his life pumped full of morphine, in harrowing pain as his family stood by, rendered helpless. He was denied an inherent right and the ability to exercise his independent will. Physician-assisted
Hutchinson proposed that voluntary ¬euthanasia could grow to the deaths of more than 1000 terminally ill patients a year before 2030. The Andrews government had the country's first assisted death in September 2017. The self-¬administered death is open to terminally ill patients aged over 18. The suffering must be with an ¬incurable disease with a life ¬expectancy of less than 12 months. I will use this to demonstrate the growing number of physician assisted suicides.
Guthrie, P. (2006). Assisted suicide debated in the united states. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 174(6), 755-6. Retrieved January 31, 2015, from http://search.proquest.com/docview/204835513?accountid=39340
I believe in the power of storytelling. February 2015, Valentina Maureira lays in a hospital bed. From her room, she filmed and posted a youtube video in which she said and I quote: “My name is Valentina Maureira, I am fourteen and I suffer from cystic fibrosis. I need to speak urgently with the president because I am tired of living with this disease, and she can authorize an injection that will allow me to sleep forever.” A desperate plea from a young and innocent girl that managed to move her South American nation’s - Chile - 20 million people. Cystic fibrosis is a nasty incurable genetic disease where patients have their lungs clogged and organs thickened due to mucus. Her plea for euthanasia came after another patient who had been resting in a bed beside hers, died a month ago.
There is an economic benefit when it comes to euthanasia. It lessens hospice bills, reduces a financial burden, and it puts more focus on other patients. Hospice care can be very expensive. In 2010 Medicare paid an average of $10,700 per patient, roughly $151 per day (Fay). With euthanasia the patient has the option to reduce or even eliminate hospice completely. It is up to the patient to choose whichever option. Another benefit is that it reduces a financial burden, this goes along with the lessening of hospice bills. Some families do not have the means to cover such large medical expenses, so it would help put an end to it. The last benefit is that it helps put more focus on other patients. If there is a patient that can not be cured and
As Gerrit Kimsma, Associate Professor in Medical Philosophy claims, “Assisting death in no way precludes giving the best palliative care possible but rather integrates compassionate care and respect for the patient’s autonomy and ultimately makes death with dignity a real option.” This explains how euthanasia doesn't prevent terminally ill patients from receiving the best palliative care and rather shows compassionate care and allows the patients to die with dignity. As Merrill Matthews, Director, Council for Affordable Health Insurance says, “Even though the various elements that make up the American healthcare system are becoming more circumspect in ensuring that money is not wasted, the cap that marks a zero-sum healthcare system is largely absent in the United States… Considering the way we finance healthcare in the United States, it would be hard to make a case that there is a financial imperative compelling us to adopt physician-assisted suicide in an effort to save money so that others could benefit…” This explains the financial benefits that euthanasia would have on the American healthcare system, allowing money to be spent on those that are desperately in
Euthanasia should be legalized because doing so would have positive economic impacts particularly on patients. According to Saaty and Vargas, the costs associated with terminal care and those that result from hospitalization would reduce if patients get the chance to opt for euthanasia (252). It is stated that “approximately 80% of a patient’s lifetime
This would make the death ones easier to accept and would allow you to be with them instead at your job or something similar. In addition to this, the patient's family would be able to get rid of any regrets they may have had.Although many would think that pain is the only reason for a person wanting euthanasia, quality of life is also a very big factor. Many illnesses come with symptoms that generally make life worse for the patients such as nausea and vomiting, paralysis, difficulty in swallowing, etc. Leading many think that living in a state which they lose their dignity and independence is worse than death Many would argue that euthanasia is just the start of a slippery slope to legalized murder but, in reality, this situation is similar to doomsday cults. We as a society need concrete evidence that the consequences are likely to
Since June 2016, euthanasia of humans is legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Colombia, and Luxembourg and Medical Assistance in Dying is legal in Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Canada, and in the US states of Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Vermont, Montana, Washington DC, and California. In Canada a bill was passed on June 17, 2016, to activate regulated assisted dying. This means suicide of a person afflicted by an incurable disease, using a lethal dose of drugs provided by a doctor. To be eligible medical suicide you must meet all of the conditions. There are different types of Assisted Suicide and many regulations on the matter to ensure no life is taken for no reason. Bill C-14 has helped
Euthanasia is a global issue that is observed differently in many cultures and religions. In Japan, voluntary active euthanasia (VAE) is not accepted to perform in all medical cases. However, it legally practices in the limit circumstances. In a study conducted on nurses’ attitudes toward patients’ requests for euthanasia, Tanida et al (2002) found that Japanese nurses didn’t support the patients’ request to die. They also didn’t want to engage in helping physicians perform euthanasia. 53% of the nurse who had been asking by patients to terminate their death denied taking active steps in this act. Only 23% of them participated in voluntary active euthanasia as something ethically right. And 14% agreed to practice if it were legal. The underlying
The United States democracy should not legalize AVE and NVAE because the potential money to be saved by the government, health care providers, insurers, and citizens creates a massive incentive to pressure people towards euthanasia in order to save money. Patients who choose euthanasia, on average, end their lives 4 weeks earlier than if they died of natural causes (according to research done by Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a respected professor at Harvard Medical School and Margaret P. Battin, a medical professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine, who based the numbers in their study off of available information from the Netherlands where euthanasia is legal) (Haney). The last four weeks of a patient's life are normally the most expensive, costing an average of $10,118 but possibly costing their family, health care providers, and insurance
Legalizing euthanasia provides a way to relieve extreme pain. Modern medicine has brought great benefits to humanity such as prolonging life, but by prolonging life it is also
Hospice or palliative care is a route many patients and families choose. The difference between the two is that hospice care is geared towards patients with a life expectancy of six or less months while palliative care is not limited by a patients’ life expectancy or their reference of curative medications or procedures. Nevertheless, the primary goal is to improve the quality of life and relieve suffering (emotional, physical, and mental). There have been many studies done, such as one in 2010 by the New England Journal of Medicine, that show those who have lung cancer, but received palliative care may live almost two months longer than the patients who don’t as a result of improvement in quality of life and mood. Nevertheless, studies such as these gives evidence that palliative and hospice care is effective and are great programs that terminally-ill patients and their families should engage.
Euthanasia debate opposes two sides in which one side argues that letting someone suffer is not ethical and the other side defend that to help someone to die is not ethical based on the morality that no one should kill or help someone to die (fundamental right that everyone is allowed to live), they judge that euthanasia should compromise the criminal code. For my own morality, I am for the euthanasia possibility for the people in need to die for the reason of the person’s well-being.
This is why Euthanasia is important and summarizing the research that I found on Euthanasia. Euthanasia is important because there is a lot of arguments about Euthanasia. Some people support it and some people do not support Euthanasia (Euthanasia and assisted suicide- Arguments). Euthanasia allows people to be free from physical pain. It is the hastening of death of a patient to prevent further sufferings (Euthanasia Revisited). The religious argument states God chooses when human life ends. Euthanasia also causes mental suffering because they are in physical pain or they are experiencing with terminal illness. It is a debatable issue. There are many different opinions on Euthanasia.