The Right To Die
So we live in America. Everyone claims it to be the home of the "free", but just how free are we? We live in a society where it is illegal and immoral to free oneself from a terminal, painful experience. We are hardly allowed to remove our loved ones from pesky life support machines and life sustaining devices. Not too long ago, if we did make these decisions, more than the majority of society would look at us as if we were cruel, wrong, immoral; a heathen with no real religious or moral beliefs. Because, if we did, indeed, have these religious and moral ideals, we would surely know that what "god" giveth, he taketh away. Especially when this has to do with life and death and the right to die.
Plato records Socrates as saying, "True philosophers make dying their profession, and...to them of all men, death is least alarming...So if you see one distressed at the prospect of dying, it will be proof that he is a lover not of wisdom, but of the body." A true philosopher would almost always agree that the right to die should be legalized. The threat of suffering from a terminally ill disease that would leave one wrecked and mentally insufficient is enough to drive most people, when faced with a likened situation in reality, to death. Some people would attack with insults, arguing that people who decide to choose death are "scared" or, even, "pussies" (yes, I've actually heard some moron make that statement.) Others would argue that "god" would only allow such a thing if it were meant to be, therefore implying that terminal illnesses only attack those deserving of such a pitiful end. These arguments are almost always lacking in knowledge and proof and usually come from very close-minded morons.
The French essayist Michel de Montaigne (sixteenth century) concluded an essay (which supported the righ to die and suicide): "To philosophize is to learn how to die. If we have learned how to live properly and calmly, we will know how to die in the same manner." In the eighteenth century, the Scottish philosopher David Hume argued that suicide "is no transgression of our duty to God." Hume believed voluntary death (euthanasia) was not a sin: "A house which falls by its own weight, is not brought to ruin by [God's] providence." Hume believed that if God had made the world through the laws of causality--the laws of physics, medicine, etc.--then disease merely expressed the natural working of such laws. Those are a few interesting facts for the religious zealots reading this to chew on.
Also, whatever happened to patient/resident rights? In a typical hospital/nursing home setting, the rights belong to all the patients and residents. Therefore, if a resident/patient decides that "silent suicide" [suicide by starving oneself] is sufficient, there is not a damn thing health workers or family members can do about it. Why, then, is it such a wrong thing for one to ask for medical aid so that they will not have to suffer through the whole starving process? (And, yes, I've read that it is a very painful death. I have witnessed it, and it is not pretty at all.) It would be wrong and against patient/resident rights if a health worker were to force feed this person, forcing them to live. Why is it not, therefore, against personal rights if the government continues to tell us "no" to physician aid and force us to live, despite the fact that we have made a logical decision based on physical debilitations and handicaps??
A rather successful argument for allowing patients to have life sustaining equipment disconnected is based on the Constitution's implied right to privacy. Now, read this closely. The phrase "right to privacy" is perhaps misleading. It seems to imply only private behavior; however, it refers to the right of a person to decide purely personal issues without interference from the government. A constitutional right to privacy was first recognized by the Supreme Court in 1965 in Griswold v. Connecticut, when it found unconstitutional state laws banning the physicians from giving out contraceptives to married couples.
Now, review. Right to privacy: right of a person to decide PURELY PERSONAL ISSUES without INTERFERENCE from the GOVERNMENT. Take that as you will, soak it up and I'll ask you one question: Why the hell isn't euthanasia legal? The right to die seems to be a pretty competent personal issue to me. The government needs to take a step out of everyone's fucking business and allow physicians the right to help people PRN. That's right, folks. I support it, always have, always will. If you can find me one good reason why I SHOULDN't support it, I might think about it. Otherwise, read on. Maybe you'll understand why it should, indeed, be made legal.
It's pretty sad to think that before the Harrison Act of 1914, Americans could legally purchase Heroin and other opiates to ease the pain of terminal illnesses such as cancer; today this is not possible. In my humble opinion: [which everyone is probably tired of, by now..haha] it should be made possible. Before World War II, most people died of sudden-onset acute diseases such as pneumonia and cholera. Today most people live longer and die more slowly from emphysema, diabetes, cancers, cardiomyopathy, and CAD (coronary artery disease.) Because of changes like these, choosing to end one's life has become a prominent issue that should be looked upon and carefully thought about with seriousness. When the American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gillman killed herself in 1935, she left a note saying that she preferred "chloroform to cancer." In an essay published posthumously, she wrote: "The record of a previously noble life is precisely what makes it sheer insult to allow death in pitiful degradation. We may not wish to 'die with out boots on,' but we may well prefer to 'die with our brains on.'" A-fucking-men, sister.
That's all.
