Right To Die

INTRODUCTION

To be or not to be - entitled to live. A woman born in a male dominated society, where her life is led not by her but her male family members. She has no rights on her body, on her emotions, her future, even her life. Should she kill her infant daughter so that she doesn't grow up to suffer the pains that she endured? Or teach her that she best kill her at the first available opportunity when she finds her survival difficult?

Somewhat different and more extendedly than just being a woman, the human race is considered to be taken at the same level by many philosophers.

Darwin taught us that human beings are only ANIMALS and that the strongest survive and the weaker die out. And evolutionists still teach these same theories today!

Adolf Hitler had no problem with the murder of 6 million Jews for they were only 'ANIMALS OF LESSER VALUE'. And the Germans were the super race. True? And that doctrine also fit very well for Joseph Stalin, since the Soviets considered themselves the strongest. It was natural then for him to murder 10,000 Polish officers in Ukraine's Black Forest and blame it on his old comrade and socialistic colleague Adolf!

Communism's Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong used the evolutionary theory to their benefit in rationalizing that to murder millions of politicians, policemen, teachers, farmers and preachers, because they were only animals of less value since they had refused to accept their glorious socialistic world view!

Darwin's doctrine was effectively demonstrated to "implement Mao's murderous, disastrous and hellish purges making him the twentieth century's No.1 Murderer by slaughtering between 40 to 80 million Chinese people in order to put into place, China's Ungodly Empire!

The historical origins of today's concepts of Euthanasia are indeed gory!

Should the people be allowed to terminate their lives because they are being told that only the fittest should have the right to survive!

Dating further back in time, the philosophers have been fighting the same issues that we do today on the pros and cons of euthanasia.

In 399 B.C.. Socrates, ancient philosopher of Greece chooses hemlock to kill himself instead of exile. That is, preferring death over his mental, emotional suffering, and not finding him fit in the society.

In 370 B.C. Against the act of euthanasia common in Greek society of his times, Hippocrates writes," I will not prescribe a deadly drug to please someone, nor give advice that may cause his death."

In 1170 A.C. A feudal Japanese warrior establishes an unusual precedent for declaring one's loyalty by committing seppuku. (What good was such loyalty?)

During the Renaissance, English humanist Thomas More (1478-1535) defended Euthanasia in book Utopia (1516). More describes in idealic terms the function of hospitals. Hospital workers watch after patients with tender care and do everything in their power to cure ills. However, when a patient has a torturous and incurable illness, the patient has the option to die, either through starvation or opium. In New Atlantis (1627), British philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) writes that physicians are "not only to restore the health, but to mitigate pain and dolours; and not only when such mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to make a fair and easy passage."

THE PRESENT CONTROVERSIES

The applied ethical issue of euthanasia, or mercy killing, concerns whether it is morally permissible for a third party, such as a physician, to end the life of a terminally ill patient who is in intense pain.

Today the controversy of the same issue has become more restricted to the field of Medicine. The euthanasia controversy is part of a larger issue concerning the right to die. Staunch defenders of personal liberty argue that all of us are morally entitled to end our lives when we see fit. Thus, according to these people, suicide is in principle morally permissible. For health care workers, the issue of the right to die is most prominent when a patient in their care (1) is terminally ill, (2) is in intense pain, and (3) voluntarily chooses to end his life to escape prolonged suffering.

Like the moral issues surrounding suicide, the problem of euthanasia has a long history of philosophical discussion. On the whole, ancient Greek thinkers seem to have favored euthanasia, even though they opposed suicide. An exception is is Hippocrates (460-370 BCE), the ancient Greek physician, who in his famous oath states that "I will not prescribe a deadly drug to please someone, nor give advice that may cause his death." The entire oath is presented below, which places emphasis on the value of preserving life and in putting the good of patients above the private interests