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Brittney L. Rees

Ms. Shonda Goss

Moral Ethics TR 2

10/11/2019

Euthanasia: Ethical Morality of Assisted Suicide

The topic of Euthanasia, specifically assisted suicide, is a complex and difficult one to

discuss. Often it is laden with emotion and can be treacherous to navigate with someone who has

had to see or contemplate it firsthand. While these experiences are detrimental to formulating a

concrete belief about whether it is morally justified or not; they are often dismissed by those

arguing against the morality of the decision to allow assisted suicide.

As an introduction I will begin with a scenario. An elderly woman of the age 71 lives an

extremely healthy life. She walks ten miles a day, eats only at home or unprocessed foots. She is

extremely eco conscious and that runs into how she eats as well, using sunflower oil instead of

dressings and growing her own vegetables organically. This woman falls one day in her

bathroom and has difficulty getting up. Upon inspection and tests at the hospital the doctors

determine that she has Lou Gehrig’s disease. They tell her that there is small likelihood that she

will experience drastic changes quickly and that she should just start doing fine motor exercises

daily to help prevent further muscle and brain deuteriation.

Exactly one month later she cannot get out of bed. She is readmitted to the hospital and

the doctors are puzzled as to why she cannot move her legs hardly, yet she has full function over

her speech and her other fine motor skills. They run a full blood workup and discover she has

Terminal pancreatic cancer as well. Within the span of six months she could no longer even wipe

her own face. One day she calls her granddaughter and discusses the fact that she has decided
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that with the help of her treating physician she will be prescribed some medication and will go to

sleep and that it will be over for her. She discusses this calmly and with an earnest air yet is

understanding to her granddaughter’s initial reaction to fight her decision. Do you think it was

wrong for this woman to decide to die with dignity, in a manner of her own choosing?

This is an experience I went through myself. The woman’s name was Sidney Hallam and

she was the best grandmother a girl could ever ask for. She is the reason I am who I am today.

My initial reaction to her telling me this was less than graceful. Everything inside of me wanted

to tell her that she couldn’t give up, that she had to keep fighting. After what felt like an eternity

of silence, I had concluded that it was her choice solely to make. It was not her “playing God” or

quitting or being weak-willed. She had made a conscious decision that she did not want to suffer

anymore and has exhausted all options for treatment. It would be cruel of me to not support her

decision and make her stay alive and suffering because I was being self-centered and wanted her

in my life.

At the time made me about as compassionate as a southern woman calling someone

“sweetie” towards those who commit suicide. Dismissing them to an eternity of damnation while

in the same breath lamenting about how sad it was, they had chosen to leave those they love

behind. This experience for me made me realize that that disregard for a person’s autonomy at

the utmost degree is entirely misplaced.

I believe that Aristotle would also agree with me on this. Aristotle states that every

person has the right to govern themselves and that every other person should respect that for the

sake of “the good”. That total autonomy is the most basic right of those who have personhood.

When we disregard a person’s right to choose how they die, and if it is with dignity, I believe
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this goes against their rights to autonomy. He also states that to treat another as “a mere means”

to get what we want in life is morally reprehensible and goes against “the good”.

In the most basic of senses this leads me to believe “a mere means” also applies to

keeping someone around, because you are scared to be alone, forcing them to be miserable in a

relationship, despite their right to autonomy. This concept also can apply to familial, platonic or

romantic relationships. That it is not our place to draw the line for another if they wish to take

their own life. If we truly are in pursuit of what is morally right, we cannot justify or base our

own happiness on the unhappiness or suffering of another.

Yet if you ask someone if it is alright for a person to take their own life usually they will

throw around either religious reasoning, or their own opinion that is completely biased on the

fact that it is murder even if you do it to yourself. I want to know however; why do we care if

someone dies? Most will say it is because we have kind hearts and care about their happiness and

well-being. Well, what if this honestly the truth and not a façade, why are you disregarding their

words on that they are unhappy and are suffering while alive?

If you ask a person if it is wrong to plan completely disregarding another’s feelings while

in a relationship, they will tell you it is wrong 100% of the time. Yet this decision is made all the

time when determining if a person can choose to take their own life whether they are terminally

ill or with the assistance of a physician to make sure it is painless and thorough. Some will argue

that it goes against the Hippocratic oath to “Do no harm” to assist in a patient’s suicide. My

argument to this is that it is crueler to allow someone to suffer when you know you cannot help

them; than to help them go peacefully while they still have the mental capacity to make the

decision to do so.
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In 1982 there was a law review done by SMU where they stated, “this enforcement

infringes upon a fundamental moral right of self-determination” (Engelhardt & Malloy 1982).

They were referencing the criminality of committing suicide, assisted or not, and came to this

deduction during the process:

“The point is that if the community is not to be a vehicle for the enforcement of the views

of some on others, and if there are wide-ranging views as to what constitutes a good life,

and if no definitive, rational argument establishes one such view as proper, then one may

only impose on others that fabric of social structure essential to the general welfare and

protection of society, and one may only define welfare in the most general terms, such as

food and shelter, where welfare can also be refused. Nor may the state enforce duties to

oneself, for the notion of duties to oneself is metaphorical. If one has a duty to oneself,

then the self that has the right to the discharge of the duty can release the self that has the

duty. Because these are the same selves, duties to oneself cannot strictly bind.” (Singer

1959).”

At the time this study was done 30 out of 50 states had laws prohibiting even attempting

suicide and classifying it as a felony. Even though they were lawmakers they still understood the

most basic right to total autonomy. For the aforementioned reasons I believe that it is not our

place whether to determine if suicide or assisted suicide is morally justifiable. If we do so we are

not being morally ethical ourselves by taking away another’s right to self-governance. This being

said, I do believe it is morally ethical to allow another person to make this decision for

themselves. To allow them to have the right to autonomy in the decision to commit suicide by

whatever means they choose even if that means medication provided to them.
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Works Cited

Engelhardt, H. Tristam, and Michelle Malloy. “Suicide and Assisting Suicide: A Critique of

Legal Sanctions.” SMU Law Review, vol. 36, no. 4, 1982,

https://scholar.smu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3188&context=smulr.

Singer, Marcus G. Duties to Oneself. 69 Ethics 202, pp. 202-04 1959.