Euthanasia - Good Or Bad?

Hi and salam to everyone.



I was just finished watching House season 6 and I found something that has been one of the world's biggest issue nowadays. In the series, Wilson help his patient who has terminal cancer to die by giving him an extreme amount of morphine (if I'm not mistaken). Wilson said that the morphine will help the patient to relieve his pain. With the feeling of guilt, Wilson and House together with Cuddy go to a medical conference. In that conference, Wilson is trying to deliver his paper about euthanasia, before House drugged him and take out all of his pants (I like this House, haha). The question here is not about House, it's about what Wilson is doing. Do we consider the act as good or bad?

I googled the word 'euthanasia' and I found some really good articles about it. Euthanasia, is derived from the word "eu" and "thanatos" in Greek which means good and death respectively. The actual meaning of this word is the act of killing someone painlessly. Now, this act is bound by some factors before it can be classified as good and bad. First, ethics. Second, religions and last one is facts. Now, back on House, if you are really House's fans, I think you know that there is one time where House did this thing. I don't remember which seasons and episode, but in that series, House was asked to treat a researcher, in which he was diagnosed for terminal cancer at the end (if i'm not mistaken, again). He said to House he just want to die without suffering too much pain. House said he still has some times left before he died but on the next day, Cuddy said that during the night, everything when fine before the researcher's heart suddenly stop, and she asked whether House was involved in the event or not. House said no, but everyone knows how much of a liar House is.

Enough about House. I am sure that Euthanasia is consider bad thing if we go with ethics. Yeah, ethics is a system of principles governing the morality and acceptable conduct. Euthanasia simply means you have to kill someone, just without the pain. Ethics wouldn't allow us to do so because the killing part is unacceptable conduct. Although if the patient itself ask for euthanasia, people with ethics will think that they can't just take another person's life, although we are doing the person's favour. What the hell? This is my life, so it's up to me what am i going to do with it. That's maybe some of the stubborn old man phrase so that they will get to die easily.

Next, religions. In many religions, they said that life is sacred. It is a gift from God and only He can take it back. In Islam, there are phrase saying that suicide is strictly prohibited. Those who commited suicide will never enter the paradise. If we go with religion, they will say that euthanasia is prohibited, it is not because the act of killing, but the act of suiciding. They tend to believe that pain and suffer are things that is given by God to punish human for their sins or just to test their believe in their religion before they can gain the reward in hereafter. So by suiciding, you shorten the time needed for your punishment and this shows that you do not have enough faith in your religion and thus, will not receive any reward in hereafter. That is why religious people forbid us from performing euthanasia

The last one is facts. When a person is suffering from a terminal illness, the facts that they know are they gonna die soon. Or let say someone got into accident, and suffer terrible injury in their head. Lost their consciousness and now are using life support machine because their brain cannot do the job. In this case, we know that the person is already dead, so putting him on the life support machine will only cause an increase in the medical bill that they need to pay later on. So, they decided to stop using the life support machine and the person is pronounced dead. In this situation, the euthanasia is acceptable, because of the fact that the person has no chance of survival, and because of the fact that they need to pay more if he/she stays longer with the life support machine.

From this three factors, I decided to came up with my own thinking. Euthanasia can only be done if the person's brain can no longer be used. That means, the person is unable to think or gain consciousness. Why is it so? Because if you only have terminal cancer, your brain can still functioning despite of the pain that you feel. So, you can think of something and search for the cure by thinking process. We know that for every ilnesses, there must be a cure. Without thinking, we may not be able to know what the cure is, so by using your functional brain, you need to think of that cure. Give up means you're dead. If the person can no longer use his or her brain, that means he/she cannot think anymore. So it is good for us to just let they died because losing your brain is just the same as losing your whole body parts.

Before I end up this post, I just want to ask you a question. Especially if you are a doctor. Will you allow yourself to perform this act? Think first before you answer it. Thank you for your time and may this post help you in any ways of helping.