Thursday, July 28, 2011

Compassion or Selfishness...

It is a strange and touchy subject to address, but I think voluntary euthanasia has some merit. I know, I know. All of you extreme right wing conservatives are about to lost your cool. That's fine. You're entitled to your opinion. I ask you though, what would you do if you were faced with a situation in which a loved one were incapacitated, had no quality of life, no hope for a cure, and he or she willingly and coherently were actively choosing to die? Could you, in good conscience, refuse the person's autonomous decision purely for the sake of your own personal beliefs? Is that not terribly selfish?

See, sometimes, in certain very particular situations, I think that perhaps this may in fact be the kindest most compassionate act possible. I say this not with an uninformed or inexperienced perspective. I say this because had I been old enough to fully understand the extreme suffering my own father must have endured up to his very last breath, I would have chosen to allow him to die peacefully instead. Never would I wish anyone to writhe in pain as he or she fought for a tiny gasp of air, only to end up suffocating to death on a hospital bed. It is a cold and cruel day when that happens. I believe it to be far kinder to allow the person in pain to quietly slip away in his or her sleep instead.

It's a slippery slope I know when you appear to condone such an act. I wouldn't dare say that I am for euthanasia across the board. Not at all actually. I think though that in a few rare cases that may in fact be the most selfless act of all. Because it hurts to let someone go. It is painful beyond belief. But so much better in the end than holding on to the shell of whom the person once was.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was told that until I chose to be happy with who I was and where I was, I'd never be happy anywhere else because it would follow me. They were right. I moved and the same things I was unhappy with about my life followed me and I could'nt blame it on anyone else. Sure I was happy for a bit with my new digs and surroundings, friends etc., but it didn't take too long before I started feeling unhappy and blamed it on the same crap. Don't know about you, but it always takes the hard way for me to learn shit. Good luck with that happiness thing...Although, NYC sounds like a fun place to try and figure it out!

AARice said...

That is absolutely a valid point. But why were you unhappy? Mine is more of needing a chance to start a new life after a really wretched decade of a terrible marriage and horrible divorce. Where I am now, I still encounter people, places, and things all associated with my old life. Literally my past haunts me in a very real way. So how then to start over?