BREAKING THE SILENCE, 2014 Breaking The Silence | Page 17

Reports that leaked
suggest that in some
countries where it has
been legalized some
government papers
revealed they should
be denied food and
liquid if they fall into
a coma or are too ill to
speak for themselves.
ONYEODI IFEANYICHUKWU AUGUSTINE - 200LEVEL MBBS
Reports that leaked suggest that in
some countries where it has been
legalized some government papers
revealed they should be denied food
and liquid if they fall into a coma or
are too ill to speak for themselves.
Note: The term “allowed” – is far
from the truth. They are forced to
die – an extremely slow, painfully
cruel death by dehydration and
starvation. Where is the humanity?
Furthermore, legalizing euthanasia
amounts to allocating the powers of
God to mere mortals, in this case,
doctors whose diagnosis has in
recent times been proved wrong as
the concept of divine healing from
this supernatural being has been
recorded in recent times and often
times than not, no explanation
however illogical is even offered by
science. Should humans be allowed
to play the role of God? Legalizing
euthanasia would do just that! The
power to play with people's lives
should not be handed out under a
legal and/or medical disguise. Thus
euthanasia should not be legalized.
Euthanasia would give a small group
of doctors “the power of life and
death over individuals who have
committed no crime except that of
becoming ill or being born, and
might lead to a state of tyranny and
totalitarianism.
More so, any physician's
involvement with suicide is
certainly contrary to their
Hippocratic Oath, which is to save
lives. The physician's role is to make
a diagnosis, and sound judgments
about medical treatment, not
whether the patient's life is worth
living. They have an obligation to
perform sufficient care, not to
refrain from giving the patient food
and water until that person dies.
Medical advances in recent years
have made it possible to keep
terminally ill people alive for beyond
a length of time even if it is without
any hope of recovery or
improvement. As shown in reports
that revealed that 95% of cancer
pain is controllable and the
remaining 5% can be reduced to a
tolerable level. Health care is
concerned with life and should
never have anything to do with
hastening or causing death.
AMSUL Digest 2014