Barney/English 90
ESSAY TWO
“Treating the Pain by Ending a Life”
By Marc Siegel
You have 110 minutes to write an essay in response to the following question:
What are Siegel’s views on euthanasia? Do you agree with his views? Why or why not?
Use examples from your own experience, reading and/or observations to develop your
essay.
Requirements for the essay:

Your essay should include:
 An introductory paragraph that includes a clear thesis statement
 Three well-developed body paragraphs with clear topic sentences
 Transitions between paragraphs
 A concluding paragraph
Skip every other line on your paper as you write, and write neatly!
Use your time wisely. Leave five to ten minutes to proofread.
Turn in this prompt and article with your essay.
RELAX AND DO YOUR BEST!
You may write your outline on the back of this paper and annotate the article.
Treating the Pain by Ending a Life
Marc Siegel
Boston Globe
January 2006
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that doctors in Oregon should not be charged
with a crime for overdosing patients in the name of treating pain and hastening death. This
decision should be applauded and must not be circumvented by new laws.
Ten years ago, I assumed the care of a woman with advanced pancreatic cancer that had
spread to her spine. She was a well-known writer, and we quickly became friends. I would travel
to her apartment and visit her for hours there, something I’d rarely done before and haven’t done
since. She had a close group of friends who visited her constantly, and an Irish nursing agency
that cared for her impeccably around the clock. At first, her cancer wasn’t causing her pain,
though it paralyzed her below the waist and bound her to her bed and wheelchair. Still, she
enjoyed the visits, mine and everyone else’s, until the fateful day when the cancer spread to her
bones and began what was clearly an escalating pain. I dialed up the morphine to compensate,
until the day came when the amount of morphine necessary clearly hastened her death. I was
able to predict roughly the time she would die, and her friends said their goodbyes. I used
morphine in the name of relieving suffering, not as a murder weapon. No one who knew her
seemed upset by the trade-off, a tortured life for a peaceful death, and all thanked me for my care
at the end.
Morphine and other narcotics suppress breathing and lower blood pressure. It is not
unusual for physicians to use these drugs to relieve suffering and thereby accelerate death in
terminal cases. What is unusual is for doctors to be prosecuted for overdosing their patients
deliberately in the name of this cause. Oregon has been the focus of the Bush administration’s
attempts to criminalize the activity, but this use of medications to knowingly end a tortured life is
not confined to Oregon. It has been part of a physician’s end-of-life role for many years, whether
it is formalized in the law or not.
Any effective physician has two fundamental roles. The first is to prolong life. The
second is to ease suffering. In most situations, easing suffering is part of prolonging life, as when
we guide a patient through an accident or a surgery and treat pain as part of ensuring survival.
Sometimes, though, our two roles collide, and a decision must be made as to which to prioritize.
This decision is made, in part, by considering long-term outcome as well as the wishes of the
patient. It is never a perfect situation, but we physicians have been making this determination for
eons, and we cannot be penalized or prosecuted and still be expected to function.
In the Netherlands, active euthanasia is legal, which means that a cancer patient who is
still ambulatory and thinking clearly can ask a doctor for a lethal injection. I am not in favor of
this policy, not because I believe that a person doesn’t have a right to end his or her life when
given a terminal diagnosis, but because I question the role of a physician in facilitating this
outcome. Such a role should not be assumed, because it is not strictly a part of relieving
suffering.
But this is not the same thing as the Oregon law, which allows a physician to participate
when pain predominates, when the patient is in agony, when reducing morphine cannot bring
back quality of life. When the only choice is pain or death, doctors routinely — with their
patients’ advance approval — help them choose death. The U.S. Supreme Court is wise to
acknowledge one of our fundamental roles. We are not “Kevorkian-izing” our doomed patients
when we help ease their path from this world.