Euthanisia Should Be Legalized

"Euthanasia" is a broad term for mercy killing--taking the life of a hopelessly ill or injured individual in order to end his or her suffering. Mercy killing represents a serious ethical dilemma. People do not always die well. Some afflictions cause people to suffer through extreme physical pain in their last days, and euthanasia may seem like a compassionate way of ending this pain. Other patients may request euthanasia to avoid the weakness and loss of mental faculties that some diseases cause, and many feel these wishes should be respected.

But euthanasia also seems to contradict one of the most basic principles of morality, which is that killing is wrong. Viewed from a traditional Judeo-Christian point of view, euthanasia is murder and a blatant violation of the biblical commandment "Thou shalt not kill." From a secular perspective, one of the principal purposes of law is to uphold the sanctity of human life. Euthanasia is so controversial because it pits the plight of suffering, dying individuals against religious beliefs, legal tradition, and, in the case of physician-assisted death, medical ethics.

This moral dilemma is not new. The term "euthanasia" is derived from ancient Greek, and means "good death." But while the debate over mercy killing has ancient origins, many observers believe that it is harder today to achieve a good death than ever before. Advances in medicine have increased people's health and life span, but they have also greatly affected the dying process. For example, in the early twentieth century the majority of Americans died at home, usually victims of pneumonia or influenza. Today most people die in the hospital, often from degenerative diseases like cancer that may cause a painful, lingering death.

Most observers trace the modern euthanasia debate back to the court case of Karen Ann Quinlan, and her story is a poignant example of medical technology's ability to prolong life. In 1975, after consuming alcohol and tranquilizers at a party, Quinlan collapsed into an irreversible coma that left her unable to breathe without a respirator or eat without a feeding tube. Her parents asked that she be removed from the respirator, but her doctors objected. The New Jersey Supreme Court case that followed was the first to bring the issue of euthanasia into the public eye. In 1976 the court allowed Quinlan's parents to have the respirator removed. Although Quinlan lived for another nine years (her parents did not want her feeding tube removed), the case set a precedent for a patient's right to refuse unwanted medical treatment.

In 1990, this right was further expanded in the case of Nancy Cruzan. Cruzan had gone into an irreversible coma in 1983 after a severe car crash, and her parents wanted the machine that was keeping her alive removed. However, in this case the machine consisted of intravenous feeding tubes that provided Cruzan with hydration and nutrition. Her parents viewed the removal of the machine as the termination of unwanted treatment. However, the state of Missouri argued that to remove the feeding tubes would be to intentionally kill Cruzan through starvation. In a controversial vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the provision of artificially delivered food and water is a treatment which patients may legally refuse, even if doing so will result in death.

The cases of Quinlan and Cruzan helped develop a social policy that recognizes that some lifesaving treatments are not always appropriate, and permits the removal of these treatments as a form of "passive" euthanasia. But shortly after the Cruzan case more active forms of euthanasia became the focus of public attention. One of the persons most responsible