by Currie Jean

Created on: June 06, 2007   Last Updated: January 18, 2009

Life is not so sacred that it should be maintained against the will of a suffering person.

At the same time life is, practically by definition, worth more concern and respect than anything else that exists. Of living things, conscious living things have the ability to experience. Along with pleasure and happiness, we have the often inescapable ability to feel pain and to suffer. We humans can also reason, and because of this, deserve the right to make decisions for ourselves.

Mercy killing is a practice that goes on in veterinary clinics every day, and it has been taking place among humans throughout history. Why is it that we treat a dying dog with more compassion than our fellow, suffering human beings? Why is this considered fair?

My father was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis a few years ago. His body is already starting to deteriorate: he suffers from terrible migraines, and he can barely feel his left leg and foot. Over time, he will gradually lose his ability to walk at all, then to use his hands to write or feed himself, then to speak, then to chew. Eventually he won't even be able to move at all, and will need the assistance of an oxygen mask to breathe.

A friend of my father's sought and received help from Jack Kevorkian before the courageous, intelligent old man was sent to prison. My father speaks of it often, and considers doctor-assisted suicide an effective and permissible option when sought out by terminally ill patients. He will likely seek it out himself later on. Suffering from MS is a continual up-and-down process of acceptance piled with setbacks. If my father decides that the suffering created by his disease will be too much to bear, I will stand by that decision one hundred percent. So will my immediate and extended family.

Human beings, both fortunately and unfortunately, are stricken with an inability to directly detect the pain and suffering of another being. The best we can do to understand another person's pain is to partner medical knowledge with empathetic compassion. We can advise, counsel, and educate another person about his or her personal decisions, but because we can not fully know another's experience, we can not claim the right to deny or grant such a final option as doctor-assisted suicide for anyone but ourselves.

Mercy-killing is a necessity in striving to end suffering. Legal doctor-assisted suicide is the best way to provide this option for medical patients, because it ensures a regulated means of death with the help of an educated professional.

Mercy-killings take place often, in many settings. Sometimes, doctors will provide early death for dying patients without the consent of the patients or their families. Sometimes families will do it for their loved ones without sufficient legal or medical knowledge. Sometimes patients will take the matter into their own hands, using drugs or violent means.

These examples, while showing that people sometimes just need to die and will bypass a system that forbids it, are not the best courses of action. The legalization of doctor-assisted suicide, and thus the creation of guidelines and stipulations in accordance with the rights of all involved (most importantly those of the patient), is what society requires.

With an aging baby-boom generation, the issue will only get more pertinent. Better to get on this now, creating room for it in the laws, than to watch more people suffer unnecessarily.

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