Euthanasia

Euthanasia should definitely be legalized. The artificial prolonging of human life and subsequent possibility of medical experimentation causes too much physical and emotional pain to continue. However, to ensure that the procedure is used as a last resort and not indiscriminately, certain logical restrictions should be put in place.

If the patient is comatose, the decision to turn off life support must be very carefully weighed. A council of esteemed doctors and therapists must be set up, to ensure that one-possibly biased or eccentric- doctor is not totally in control. There must be a set period of time in which to try and cure the patient. Before this time elapses, euthanasia can not even be an option. In addition, there should be a maximum time period that doctors may artificially sustain life, so that families or hospitals with unlimited funds do not keep a hopeless patient on life support indefinitely. The parents/legal guardians of the patient, or whoever is to make the decision, should be counseled by an independent expert who has nothing to gain from further treatment (such as money or prestige).

If the patient is alive and of sound mind, and requests euthanasia because of an incurable disease, they should have the right to choose. However, if the council mentioned above believes that more can be done for the patient, they will be required to wait a certain amount of time in case a cure can be found. When deciding this, the council should take into account issues such as finance to determine whether the patient will in fact be able to undergo further treatment or hospitalization. The patient must also be counseled (once again by an independent authority) as to their options. They must in no way be made to feel that euthanasia is their only option; the procedure must be a personal choice. Obviously, the means of death must be as humane as possible.

What is the most impossible thing to remember about this issue is that if a terminally ill patient is denied the right to a painless death, they may turn to other means of suicide, which are likely to result in even more undue pain and suffering on them and their families.