Robles 1

Veronica Robles

Professor Kern

DRWI 0091-7001

25 April 2011

Mercy killing

First, we should have the right to end our lives while we are happy with our live style and still can enjoy the small moments of life. Humanity allows laws and society to decide who will live or die through the death penalty; this involves revoking the right to leave trough preconceived notions of good and bad. Also, we put our pets to sleep due to a health deficiency or just even old age but at that moment in time we don’t consider the feeling of our pets and the fact that many people say they have equal right as humans and thus should be treated the same. The loop hole there is that we act as agents of death and judge weather they should live or die, yet, we don’t allow our self to do so when we are out in freedom and have rationality on our side.

Second, the enormous economic burdens placed upon the love ones of a person with a terminal illness are unbearable. In many cases the family of a low income ill person cannot literally pay for life support thus ending in a debt that the patient would have wished to never have left to its family. For example, keeping someone alive through sophisticated equipment when they are in a comma is highly expensive and the chemo-therapy for a final stage cancer patient is as expensive but this can be avoided not by offering death as a solution to the problem but allowing those who see that as the best solution for their families economy.

Third and lastly, the one with the biggest decision is the main character, the patient whom is suffering the emotional and physical pain of a terminal illness. The pain of living day in and day out with pain and an artificial life support is mentally devastating especially if you know that it will do no help other than to extend the misery. This added to their body’s physical deterioration and pain is inhumane and barbaric.

In conclusion, mercy killing should be allowed only if agreed upon by the victim/patient whom understands fully the decision and accepts all responsibility. We can’t allow people to suffer through such agony because it is unfair to let laws and the populous to agree in the death penalty to a criminal or the death of an animal with equal human right and not allow a full rational human to end their mental, physical and economic burden on them self and their families.