“I 'm not afraid of being dead, I 'm just afraid of what you might have to go through to get there”, stated by Pamela Bone during her deterioration from cancer (Bone). Giving someone the choice of ending their life was not known by many until a man of the name of Jack Kevorkian began performing this procedure. He was the first to assist others in ending their lives due to medical illnesses. His actions caused many years of conflict with the court system, forcing him to spend eight years in prison. Kevorkian’s procedures aroused national controversy over the moral and ethical issues surrounding this extremely sensitive topic. Assisted suicide is slowly becoming more prominent in the world with the discussion of the benefits of the practice,
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Considering all the housing payments from nursing homes, medical bills, physical therapy, and another other assistance, the total cost to maintain what most would consider a poor quality of life is pretty high. It can be difficult to truly see the benefits of assisted suicide until you or a family member or close friend is put in a situation where the inevitable is the only option. Having a way to end the suffering would not only benefit the patient but also the family and friends of the patient. It would allow them to find the peace that their love one passed without enduring the pain of the process. Some would not want their loved ones to watch them deteriorate. They would appreciate being given the opportunity to leave their family and friends with an image and memory of them that is less painful than what it could …show more content…
Death itself is hard to talk about, but even more so suicide. Suicide has always had a bad connotation. It is seen as selfish and weak, even morally wrong in a lot of cases. Those who are religious may believe one will go to hell for committing suicide. The name alone causes people to turn away from the idea. If we had a word to use as some sort of absent referent I think it would help greatly. For example, we don’t call a hamburger a dead cow because that is less appealing and may offend some people. To us it is meat and no longer an animal. An absent referent for assisted suicide could possibly make this topic more acceptable and easier to discuss. I personally have never put a lot of thought in death or the process to get to that point, but after spending countless hours in a nursing home visiting my grandpa while surrounded by people suffering from various illnesses, I have recently realized how frightening death can be. The end of life is not scary; the scary part is the progress of getting to that state. Losing abilities, as in memories, thoughts, or actions, is a very difficult and hurtful thing to go through. Watching my grandpa slowly suffer from dementia for many years allowed me to understand why some would never want to get to that point. Slowly becoming disabled, if that is the case, does not only hurt you but hurts your loved ones as well. Although death is
Considering all the housing payments from nursing homes, medical bills, physical therapy, and another other assistance, the total cost to maintain what most would consider a poor quality of life is pretty high. It can be difficult to truly see the benefits of assisted suicide until you or a family member or close friend is put in a situation where the inevitable is the only option. Having a way to end the suffering would not only benefit the patient but also the family and friends of the patient. It would allow them to find the peace that their love one passed without enduring the pain of the process. Some would not want their loved ones to watch them deteriorate. They would appreciate being given the opportunity to leave their family and friends with an image and memory of them that is less painful than what it could …show more content…
Death itself is hard to talk about, but even more so suicide. Suicide has always had a bad connotation. It is seen as selfish and weak, even morally wrong in a lot of cases. Those who are religious may believe one will go to hell for committing suicide. The name alone causes people to turn away from the idea. If we had a word to use as some sort of absent referent I think it would help greatly. For example, we don’t call a hamburger a dead cow because that is less appealing and may offend some people. To us it is meat and no longer an animal. An absent referent for assisted suicide could possibly make this topic more acceptable and easier to discuss. I personally have never put a lot of thought in death or the process to get to that point, but after spending countless hours in a nursing home visiting my grandpa while surrounded by people suffering from various illnesses, I have recently realized how frightening death can be. The end of life is not scary; the scary part is the progress of getting to that state. Losing abilities, as in memories, thoughts, or actions, is a very difficult and hurtful thing to go through. Watching my grandpa slowly suffer from dementia for many years allowed me to understand why some would never want to get to that point. Slowly becoming disabled, if that is the case, does not only hurt you but hurts your loved ones as well. Although death is