In this day and age, people are living longer lives than they did 100 years ago. Living longer is due mainly to the medical and technological advancements of this era. Although to many people, a longer life may be appealing, but does living longer have consequences? Nursing homes and long term hospital care facilities seem to be filling up with patients rapidly. Could this be due to doctors trying to play "God", through administering medications and treatments to keep their patients alive? This should be a great concern to people who are elderly or are living with a life threating illness, because these patients may have to face choosing to die rather than suffering through treatment after treatment.
In the essay, "A Crime of Compassion", the author Barbara Huttmann begins her story by telling how people viewed her as a "murderer" (Huttmann para 1). Is helping someone to end his or her suffering murder? What we first must understand in order to answer that question is what euthanasia or "mercy killing" is. Nursing World describes euthanasia as "the act of putting to death someone suffering from a painful and prolonged illness or injury" ("Active Euthanasia" para 2). I think the key words here are "painful and prolonged". If an animal were in pain, would it not put them out of their misery? Then why is it different for a human? Showing mercy to an animal is right, but a human must suffer till the end. .
I have two uncles, both who have cancer and were not given much time to live. One uncle chose not to do any kind of treatment to help cure his cancer and has lived much longer then the doctors told him he would. He has never been in much pain at all and has been able to spend quality time with his family. Yet, my other uncle chose to receive treatment for his cancer. He has suffered tremendously for months on end from the treatments and now lays in a hospital bed with the cancer gone, but now has a blood clot in his lung as a result from the treatment.
