Personal Paper on Euthanasia Essay

A life is ending. Losing a life is tragic enough within its own right. Euthanasia appears to be the best option for a patient. Though the family and patient have suffered immensely, they must continue to suffer mentally and physically through the passive euthanasia process. This particular patient’s death was tragic and slow. The body had broken down, and only a shadow of who the person once was laid in bed as the last breath was taken. If another form of euthanasia, called active euthanasia had been legal, a large amount of pain and suffering could have been spared. If passive euthanasia is legal, then active euthanasia should be legal too. Passive Euthanasia, is when a physician determines that death is unavoidably close, that rather than prolong suffering, to stop whatever treatment is keeping the patient alive. An example would be, if a person is being kept alive by a machine that breathes for them, a decision is made to turn off the machine, indirectly ending the person’s life. Also, there are many cases that are not as simple as that. Often times, passive euthanasia can be performed on a conscious person. If a person is alive, but barely capable of living, a tube that feeds the patient is removed. This leads to the patient starving to death, which led to the patient dying in great pain. My father was diagnosed with terminal colo-rectal cancer, and instead of trying surgeries that would lengthen his life by a few months, he chose not to. My father was passively euthanized. He died a much different man that I have known my whole life. He, once a large burly man had lost around a hundred pounds, and was bedridden. All of his muscles were slowly disintegrating because of atrophy since he was unable to get out of bed. He was in major pain despite the medication he was given, and in the last month of his life the cancer had gone into the blood and to his brain, making him hallucinate,