Unethical

by Lisa Fillers

Created on: August 18, 2008

It is often said to have knowledge is to have power. To argue any point of view on any subject with someone of opposite opinion one must be armed with more than just how they feel about a particular subject.

The definition of ethical is honorable, moral, and is further defined as conforming to accepted standards of social or professional behavior.

At one time the word euthanasia meant the good death and old dictionaries defined it as dying well or departing life quietly and well.

In recent years euthanasia has taken on a darker, more sinister meaning and today is most commonly defined as a doctor taking the life of a patient by lethal injection. This form of euthanasia often occurs in doctor assisted suicides. However, it also includes death by deprivation of all food and water, a very slow and agnonizing death for both the patient and the patient's family to endure.

There is nothing honorable or moral in taking the life of another human being and it does not conform to the general population's idea of accepted standards of social or professional behavior.

To allow ourselves to become complacent with euthanasia is to put our own lives and those of our loved ones at risk.

Currently in the United States there is a political agenda afloat to bring about socialized medicine. It touts one of the benefits of socialized medicine as being that everyone would have health coverage. What they do no tell you is that no one will be able to get in to see a physician when they really need one due to huge waiting lists and bureaucratic red tape designed to stall you from the use of medical facilities until you no longer need to see a physician. In a socialized medical world you are no longer Jonathan Smith or Janelle Brown. You become John or Jane Doe, a number in a system. When it comes to crunching numbers to meet budget cuts, you are at the mercy of the government. Is it not then very plausible to believe that when you become a drain on a socialized medical system you will be euthanized?

If euthanasia is legalized due to our complacency then a medical degree becomes a license to kill. It is with good reason euthanasia is not legalized in all countries. It became legal in Holland in 2002. According to ProQuest Information and Learning Company many elderly Dutch people are afraid to go to the doctor. They are afraid to take the medicine prescribed by their doctors because they do not know if it is something to help them or to kill them. In 2006 it became legal in Holland for physicians to euthanize babies! They collaborate with the parents for the death of severely handicapped or suffering children. What could one think is honorable or moral about the murder of an innocent handicapped child?

Further, you have the possibility of a physician who might not be the most honest person taking payoffs from a family member wanting to get rid of the patient. You also have spouses who will claim it was the patient's wish in the event of a tragic accident or severe illness because they will profit from the insurance benefits or estate of the spouse at their death, or because, unknown to the physician, they were having marital problems. Too, there are heartless, grown children of elderly patients who cannot seem to wait for them to die in order to inherit their property and money.

Hospitals and medical facilities might even be paid a fee for helping reduce the government's expenditures by the use of euthanasia which would encourage physicians to use euthanasia long before they perceived a patient to be at death's door. It also opens a window for hospital administrations to come down on physicians to not only utilize the use of euthanasia as a means of cash flow for the facility but to simply clear out beds needed for new patients.

A physician is not infallible. There have been many cases reported of patients involved in traumatic accidents or suffering what had been thought to be a fatal illness that recover and go on to live many more years. Do you really want the power of life and death of yourself or your loved ones left in the hands of a physician or the government?

If you do not stand firm for what is honorable and moral and speak out now against euthanasia, your own fate may very well rest in the hands of your physician someday soon.

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