Euthanasia

Do We Have The

Right To Die?

Goldfarb, Jennifer

ENC 1102

Mrs. Cartright

In October of 1939, Louis Repouille chloroformed his thirteen-year-old son described as "an incurable imbecile." The boy was deformed and mute since birth and therefor bedridden. Due to a brain tumor, he became blind. Two months afterward, the father was found guilty of manslaughter in the second degree. No man or woman can honestly say that this boy should have stayed alive to suffer inevitably or that his father should have sanely watched him. Euthanasia is the right for any human being who is terminally ill to find the means to end his or her life. Mentally stable adults, who are deathly ill, have a right to die.

Euthanasia has been practiced throughout time and in many cultures. When an elderly Aymara Indian of Bolivia becomes terminally ill, relatives and friends are summoned to the home of the death vigil. The family will withhold food and drink until the dying person slips into unconsciousness and dies. In Eskimo cultures, an old or sick Eskimo tells his family when he is ready to die and the family will immediately comply by abandoning the aged person to the ravages of nature or by killing him themselves. Aged Ethiopians allowed themselves to be tied to wild bulls. The natives of Amboyna, ate their failing relatives out of charity. Congolese jumped on the tired and old until their life was gone. In Athens, magistrates kept a supply of poison for anyone who wished to die. Aiding death was often done out of respect for an ill person. (Humphrey, 2)

In Christianity, on the other hand, suicide was denounced. Anyone who took his or her own life was denied a Christian burial. With a reaffirmation of Greek and Roman values, the concept of an easy death gradually came to be regarded once again. What distinguished the sixteenth century attitude toward suicide from that of the Middle Ages was a reawakened interest in individualism. (Humphrey, 8)

During the eighteenth century, Paradys, a physician, wrote "Oratio de Euthanasia." He recommended an "easy death" for a patient who is incurable and suffering. In 1777, a year after his death, David Hume's essay, "Of Suicide" was published. He wrote, "when life has become a burden both courage and prudence should engage us to rid ourselves at once of existence." Schopenhaur stressed man's assailable title to his own life and person. "It will be generally found that, as soon as the terrors of life reach the point at which they outweigh the terrors of death, a man will put an end to his life." (Humphrey, 11) It was believed that incurable pain overwhelmed man and death was indeed a merciful release and suicide a laudable act.

In 1911, the Laforgue family committed suicide. In a written statement, the husband pointed out that he has orchestrated his own death "before pitiless old age which is taking from me one of the pleasures and joys of existence, and depriving me of my intellectual strength, paralyzed my energy, breaks my life and makes me a burden to myself and others. Years ago, I promised myself not to live beyond seventy." (Humphrey, 12)

In 1938, in New York, a grand jury refused to indict Harry Johnson for asphyxiating his wife who had been repeatedly quoted saying she wanted to die. He was charged with first-degree murder. Quadriplegic Elizabeth Bouvia was refused permission to starve to death in a hospital. William Bartling pleaded with the world and the courts to be taken off of his respirator. He died while fighting for his right to die. Clair Connroys family won the watershed right to disconnect her from the artificial feeding, setting a precedent that pleased some and dismayed others. In Raleigh Fitkin-Paul Morgan Memorial Hospital versus Anderson, a woman refused treatment for religious reasons during her eighth month of pregnancy. The Supreme Court of New Jersey ordered a transfusion since the welfare of the baby and mother is inseparable. In John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital versus Heston, Delores Heston was admitted to the hospital due to an automobile accident. Doctors concluded that in order to survive she would need an operation that would require a transfusion. Her mother and herself were Jehovah's Witnesses and refused consent. Although she carried a card for over six years that stated her choice not to receive a transfusion, the blood was administered. (Humphrey, 232)

The law has, for the most part, prohibited Euthanasia. Karen Ann Quinlan was 21 on April 14, 1975, the day that she swallowed a combination of valiums and alcohol that put her in a coma. Many doctors said, "she had no hope of emerging" and was put on life support. Karen's parents petitioned for a court for permission to remove her from the life support so that she could die "with grace and dignity." On March 31, 1976 the New Jersey Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling: "The Constitutional right to privacy encompassed a person's decision to forgo life-sustaining medical treatment in certain circumstances." The court said that Karen's father could make the decision for her. After she was disconnected from the respirator, she confounded the experts. She remained unconscious, but still breathing. She withered away to sixty-five pounds and stayed alive until June 11, 1985 when she died in a nursing home. Although she never knew it, Karen began the right to die movement. (Stout, 13NJ)

Rebecca Lou Badger was 31 years of age when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a degeneration disease of the nervous system. She could no longer walk, was subject to seizures and got through the day with prescription painkillers. Ahead she saw nothing, but agony and finally requested her death come sooner. She wrote, "pain excruciating. Can't walk. Excrement all over myself." In a Detroit hotel, she died from a lethal injection supervised by Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Then 68 years old, Dr. Kevorkian was the apostle of euthanasia. (Jerome, 53)

A 53-year-old Canadian man named Austin Bastille, whose body had been crippled by multiple sclerosis, sat with a mask over his face and flipped a switch with his only limb still under his control. He sent carbon monoxide flowing through his lungs until he was gone. His wife, friend, and doctors (including Jack Kevorkian) sat in the room with him. He spoke on a video four days earlier. He said that his death was a blow for freedom "not just for myself, but for every rational Canadian who someday may wish to have a choice in how they will die." The death certificate stated that