Legalization Of Assisted Suicide

“I would never want to be kept alive artificially,” 39 year old quadriplegic French man, Vincent Lambert stated to his wife before his motorbike accident in 2008. However, Vincent has remained in a vegetative state since, causing controversy about his condition and whether he should be allowed to choose to end his life. According to French Law, his wife has the capacity to make a decision about her partners’ life; causing controversy between his family and furthermore reignites the debate on assisted suicide and Euthanasia. His wife would prefer to honour his wish to allow him to die but is strongly opposed by his parents who hold firm conservative Catholic beliefs and are significantly against the idea of assisted suicide. Collins English …show more content…
According to the Bible, life is a gift from God and human beings are the sacred creation of God, for this reason, human life is, by extension, sacred. Moreover, they maintain that only God has the ability to decide when a human life should start and when it should end. Therefore, assisted suicide would be considerate as not only acting against the will of God but is also classified as a sinful act. This belief is shared in different religions such as Christian, Jewish and Islamic, although, some members of these religion can agree that the idea of assisted suicide in specific cases is controversial, particularly when the quality of life becomes more important than the sanctity of life. It is important to note that some non-religious people also have this view that assisted suicide “devalues” life. However ethical arguments support the exact opposite conclusion. Indeed, there is no doubt that everybody should be capable to choose when and how they want to die and, they would be able to do so with dignity. Another important aspect of the ethical argument is the notion of quality of life. Quality of life is “a general well-being of individuals and society” (quoted, Wikipedia.com). This concept regroups a wide range of contexts which include healthcare and happiness. Due to the fact that some terminally ill patients are in intractable pain, their quality of life is intolerably poor on the scale. From a legal perspective, it is important to also examine how suicide is considered as legal act to all; however due to mental and/or physical limitations of terminally ill patients, they are unable to exercise this option, therefore patients are discriminated against as a result of their disabilities, which is ethically