A major debate in the medical world over the past century has been dealing with the ethical and practical use of euthanasia. This term is defined as “the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy”. When a patient is terminally ill and suffering a great deal, the practice of euthanasia allows the patient to request the physician to help end his/her suffering through medications that hasten their death. The doctor can execute this assisted-suicide by giving the patient a lethal injection or by providing a lethal dose of drugs. However, euthanasia is illegal in a lot of places. This practice is only legal in five states in America and 28 countries across the world. California, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington are among the five states where euthanasia, or assisted dying is legal. In these five states, along with the majority of the 28 countries where euthanasia is legal, the patient must be terminally ill in order to request this deadly process. Through the evidence from first-hand experiences, studies, and ethical and moral ideas, the United States as a nation should reconsider legalizing euthanasia in order for terminally ill patients to be granted the right to die with pride as well as ending their unbearable suffering.

Because of the fact that euthanasia is illegal in all but five of the US states, there are many individuals who are strongly against this act. Unethical, immoral, and dangerous are all common terms associated with assisted dying, giving it a bad reputation. As a result of this, there are many against this deed; however, there are quite a few who do not fully understand this term and how it is applied within the medical field, which could potentially shift their opinion on this practice and increase the public’s support for the legalization in America. According to a study done in Canada, it was found that the general population is typically not informed about the end-of-life practices. Many believed euthanasia had to deal with treatment withdrawal which would cause the patient to suffer even more. This is not the truth. Euthanasia would allow the patient, who suffers a great deal from his/her illness, to end this suffering and negative way of life through painless medication supplied by the physician. Another study done in Oregon revealed that many people believed that “‘passive’ and ‘active’ euthanasia are equivalent” (Marcoux). However, active euthanasia involves the medical professional hastening the death of the patient without consent and through lethal injections or drugs, but passive euthanasia is when the patient requests the medical professional to disregard medication or other factors that are keeping them alive to accelerate their own death. It seems to be morally right for a physician to help the patient end his/her suffering by hastening death, as long as the patient has clearly and properly requested this deed because he/she lives a poor quality of life due to an incurable and highly sufferable illness. 

According to this graph from Gallup, the general public’s opinion in the US has increased dramatically since before the 1950’s. The majority of the general population of America is supportive of euthanasia, causing controversy because it is still illegal in 45 of the 50 US states. Throughout the years, there has been an increase in the public knowledge on this subject, which is one of the causes for the increase of support within the public, shown in the graph. The five states in the US that legalized euthanasia, CA, MT, OR, VT, WA, were all enacted after 2008, besides Oregon which came in 1997. This aligns with the graph because around ’97 the public opinion shot up to a record high of 75% for the support of euthanasia. The US population was supportive of the practice and it was beneficial for Oregon to consider enacting the Death with Dignity Act because of all the support. The graph also shows that since 2008, when the other four states began to legalize this practice, the public opinion has steadily remained around the mid 60%’s to the low 70%’s. The majority of the US population support euthanasia, but there are also many who do not.

Some people who believe that if euthanasia becomes legal, it will cause a “Slippery Slope” effect (Lillehammer). This argument makes the claim that “if some specific kind of action (such as euthanasia) is permitted, then society will be inexorably led (“down the slippery slope”) to permitting other actions that are morally wrong” (Benatar). Not only is this a scare tactic, but it is used in a negative way. There is no evidence to prove that this effect would cause specifically ‘morally wrong’ actions. It is merely an assumption, and if the US does legalize euthanasia across the country, specific laws could be in tact to avoid this “slippery slope” effect. These such laws could include only strictly allowing terminally ill patients to request doctor-assisted suicide. 

However, on the other hand, the “slippery slope” argument could also be a positive effect from legalizing euthanasia. Some patients have other intolerable diseases that are not terminal. These can include severe mental suffering that can be “as unbearable as physical suffering, or not only competent patients, but also incompetent patients who can suffer from conditions that make their lives not worth living” (Benatar). Because of these wide ranges of conditions that could lead to euthanasia, it would be difficult to be able to account for all of them in one step. The “slippery slope” effect can begin with only the terminally ill, and people might eventually realize that there are other diseases that should have access to euthanasia and begin to support the next step of the “slippery slope” effect, even if they cannot see it now. There are both positive and negative viewpoints for the “slippery slope” argument that can positively affect how euthanasia can be transformed in America in the future. A practice in today’s society, palliation, could potentially use the “slippery slope” method to help euthanasia become legal.

Palliation is a term that is similar to euthanasia. They both have some of the same goals, to relieve suffering, but there are some differences. Palliation can lead to sedation sometimes, which is defined as the administering of a sedative drug to produce a state of calm or sleep. The main differences between palliation and euthanasia, though, are that palliation is legal and its goal is to “treat pain and symptoms, with an understanding that there is some chance that death may happen more quickly, but euthanasia is [simply] ending life in the means of ending suffering” (Morrison & Kang). The distinction between these two terms can be hard, especially in clinical practice. Sometimes palliation can lead to death, but it is still considered palliation and not euthanasia. Palliation can “require sedating the patient to the point of minimal or no consciousness” (Benatar). This is terminal sedation which means that the patient is sedated for the remained of his/her biological life. 

Because palliation and sedation are alternatives to death, many people who believe that euthanasia is immoral would similarly believe some forms of palliation and sedation are immoral as well. For a lot of people, continuing life in a minimally conscious or even unconscious state for the remainder of their lives could potentially be worse than death, but it does occur and it is legal. Some argue that this is not true and that this condition is not worse than death, but this argument is hard to support because until that person is experiencing his/her life in a minimally conscious or unconscious state firsthand, or with a family member, then there is no way for this person to know how it would feel to live life this way, making it hard to believe that this claim would be true. The “slippery slope” argument from earlier is relevant to this topic too because of the fact that palliation is currently legal, so people realize that since euthanasia is similar and can actually have benefits over palliation, euthanasia should become legalized in the US due to this “slippery slope” argument. 

A person should have the freedom to do what they want with their own life, especially in terms of crisis. It should not be up to the government to allow a person to continue living their life while their family is forced to pay for the bills to keep the person alive if they would rather end their suffering and poor quality of life and just be dead. According to Richard Meyer, a physician, Medicare paid $50 billion just for doctor and hospital bills during the last two months of patients’ lives, and it has been estimated that 20 to 30 percent of these medical expenses may have had no meaningful impact. This is important to understand because the healthcare system of America is negatively impacted by continuing to pay for hospital bills even though a major portion had no positive impact. If euthanasia were to be legalized, a lot of suffering patients with severe illnesses could have the chance to end their lives and save money for the healthcare system along with their families as well. There is no reason to keep a person alive if he/she is deathly ill and wishes not to live any longer. 

According to Dartmouth’s Dr. Elliot Fisher, “Medicare will pay $55,000 for patients with advanced breast cancer to receive the drug, Avastin, even though it extends life only an average of a month and a half.” He continues by saying, “It will pay $40,000 for a 93-year old man with terminal cancer to get a surgically implanted defibrillator if he happens to have heart problems too.” By spending this much money for the extension of a few months, or even less, of life is unreasonable and it hurts the healthcare system. If a patient is getting treatment to extend their life by a couple of months, there is no reason, if they choose, for them to continue living and suffering in this world. The FDA should restrict some of these drugs that only extend life by a few months at an extremely high cost for the government. Richard Meyer, a physician, conducted research with cancer patients in 2015 and his results showed that they do not agree with the medical system either. Meyer states, “the cancer patients indicated that a lot of them do not want to go through extensive treatments that have horrible side effects if there is no hope of a better quality of life.” The horrible treatment and high cost are not beneficial for a patient who indicates that he/she does not want them. 

Dr. Fisher also shares that “the real problem is that many of the patients that are being treated aggressively, if you ask them, they would prefer less aggressive care. They would prefer to be cared for at home. If they were given a choice. But we don’t adequately give them a choice.” Dr. Fisher provides the uncanny details of how the medical system does not give the patients a choice on how to finish their lives. Not only are the patients not allowed to end their miserable lives, but they don’t even have a choice on where and when. If a deathly ill patient was begging me to let him die in his home with his family, I would accept the punishment and let him do it because nobody else should have the ability to choose where he should die except for him. People should ideally die naturally, but if not, euthanasia would help them end their suffering and reduce the money spent on them. Many doctors correspondingly agree with this, as told by Dr. Byock.

Dr. Byock is a medical professional who leads a team that treats and counsel’s patients with advanced illnesses. In an interview with CBS, he explains some problems with the end-of-life care. He starts by sharing that around “18 to 20 percent of Americans spend their last days in an ICU. It’s extremely expensive and uncomfortable. Many times the [patients] have to be sedated so they don’t reflexively pull out a tube, or sometimes their hands are restrained. This is not the way most people would want to spend their last days of life. And yet this has become almost the medical last rites for people as they die.” He also explains that “modern medicine has become so good at keeping the terminally ill alive by treating the complications of underlying disease that the inevitable process of dying has become much harder and is often prolonged unnecessarily”. This doctor understands how unnecessary it is to put money toward these dying patients, especially without the patient’s support. Another quote Dr. Byock states is how “families cannot imagine there could be anything worse than their loved one dying. But in fact, there are things worse. Most generally, it’s having someone you love die badly.” He explains a lot about the situations that happen at his work in the ICU. These families hate seeing their loved one suffering and aren’t able to do anything about it. The patient has no choice but to accept this notion. The fact that this medical professional does not even believe that the things he is doing is helping really shows how crumbled our medical system is when it comes to the end of a patient’s life. With euthanasia continuing to remain illegal, these problems will not begin to improve. Euthanasia would allow these patients to die peacefully and with pride, as well as save the government a ton of money with Medicare. 

The thought of euthanasia is bigger than just a doctor killing a patient. It involves the patient’s best interest, their hope, how they want to deal with their life, and their chance to come with peace as they end their suffering. In America, freedom is a big concern, and by legalizing euthanasia, patients who have little hope left in their life are given the freedom to deal with their own lives in a way of pride. It would be tough to make the request, but it shows more than just giving up, but ending the pain and suffer that was carried with them throughout the end of their lives. America could benefit from this legalization as well because if Medicare is spending less on patients who don’t want care, the patients who have long lives ahead of them will be able to get better treatment and more care from the incredible amount of money saved by Medicare. Spending it on the patients who did not want is unnecessary.

Euthanasia is a big debate going on in today’s medical world, and the fact that it is still illegal is not beneficial. The US should reconsider the legalization of euthanasia in order for terminally ill patients to be granted the right to die with pride as well as ending their unbearable suffering. If the public is given more knowledge about physician-assisted death’s, the public support will continue to rise. The “slippery slope” effect will thrive in a positive way, despite the claims by the opposition, and will help the medical system properly deal with these patients. The money spent by Medicare and the government will dramatically decrease with the legalization of euthanasia, and the patient’s will be able to peacefully die with pride along with their families who are confident in their decision.
