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Outline
Thesis statement: Although euthanasia ends suffering, physicians should not practice euthanasia.
I.
II.
III.
Physicians opposing euthanasia realize that the Bible opposes euthanasia.
A.
Genesis states that God created man in His image.
B.
Exodus states that God forbade man to kill.
Physicians opposing euthanasia realize that euthanasia violates the patient’s trust.
A.
Physicians will not be trusted to treat patients.
B.
Physicians will not be trusted as a whole.
Physicians opposing euthanasia realize that they can find a better solution than
euthanasia.
A.
The patient can still survive.
B.
The patient can take pain medication.
Restatement of Thesis: Even though mercy-killing terminates pain, doctors should not terminate
life under the guise of euthanasia.
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Killing for Mercy
“I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion
to this effect. . . . In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art” (Kass 301). Hippocrates,
known by many as the “Father of Medicine,” included the above statement in his famous
Hippocratic Oath. Many doctors today swear this oath, but why would they need to? In many
countries in the world today such as the Netherlands, doctors practice euthanasia or physicianassisted suicide. What constitutes euthanasia? What identifies physician-assisted suicide? What
distinguishes the two of them? Michele M. Mathes —Ethics Education Coordinator for the
Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—
refers to assisted suicide as “making available to an individual the means [. . .] to take his or her
own life”: the assistor not actually killing the person (261). Assisted suicide and physicianassisted suicide differentiate in that a physician provides the means in the latter. Mathes also
states that the actual act of taking a person’s life for that patient’s own good defines euthanasia
(261), also referred to as mercy-killing. Although euthanasia ends suffering, physicians should
not practice euthanasia.
Physicians opposing euthanasia realize that the Bible opposes euthanasia. When God
created man, He formed him in His own image. Genesis 1: 27 states, “So God created man in his
own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Physicians
who combat mercy-killing realize that God created man like Himself, and these doctors dare not
violate the image of God even more than they would deface God Himself. When God wrote the
Ten Commandments, He included, “Thou shalt not kill” (Ex. 20.13). This commandment takes
into account not only cold-blooded murder but also euthanasia. Killing a human being constitutes
murder no matter what banner it flies under.
In addition to physicians who stand firm against euthanasia, realizing that God’s Word
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opposes mercy-killing, physicians also realize that euthanasia violates the patient’s trust. Patients
will not trust physicians to treat them if the legislature passes a law permitting euthanasia. Dr.
Raymond G. Bohlin, president of Probe Ministries, writes about this trust between patient and
doctor. He holds the view that if the government decriminalized euthanasia, people would
wonder if the physician really wanted to help or if he had for “his best interest” a desire “to rid
the hospital and himself of a pesky patient and situation.” Dr. Bohlin quotes Dr. Thomas Beam,
chairman of the Medical Ethics Commission of the Christian Medical and Dental Society, as
saying, “While the act of physician-assisted suicide seems compassionate on the surface, it is
often the abandonment of the patient in their most needy time.” Dr. Beam also said that the
patient will see physician-assisted suicide as “hopelessness” and will not see any “support” from
a doctor that practices euthanasia (n. pag.). Do people see any kind of aid if someone agrees to
kill them?
If a doctor practices euthanasia, the patients will be suspicious of everything he does. Can
they trust the medication if they distrust the doctor? Carrie Gordon Earli of Focus on the Family
magazine says something to the effect that a patient and doctor association rests on faith and
trust. Patients trust in receiving advice and taking medicine (n. pag.). If the physician does not
want to help the patient, why would the patient come to the appointment? People trust doctors
now, but can they in the future? In the article by Kris Dotts of Tennessee Right to Life, he calls
the public’s attention to the case of Nancy Cruzan and Christine Busalacchi. These two girls had
survived a car accident, suffered severe brain trauma, and depended on feeding tubes. They
could move “ON REQUEST”; they could follow a person with their eyes, and Christine could
even speak. The parents of these two girls appealed to the judicial system, and Christine and
Nancy effectively starved to death when the hospital staff removed the feeding tubes (n. pag.).
Christine and Nancy did not make the choice to die; someone else did. Carrie Gordon Earll of
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Focus on the Family states,
Allowing physicians to cross the line into killing does not stop with willing
patients who request it. A case in point is in The Netherlands where doctors have
practiced physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia for more than a decade. Two
Dutch government reports, conducted in 1990 and 1995, found that, on average,
26 percent of euthanasia deaths in Holland were “without the explicit consent of
the patient.” In 1995, 21 percent of the patients who were killed without consent
were competent. (n. pag.)
Unwilling patients fall prey to euthanasia in Holland; the same scenario can happen here in
America if Congress passes a law authorizing euthanasia.
Every physician’s reputation lies ‘on the line if America’s government legalizes
euthanasia. Kris Dotts of the Tennessee Right to Life organization gives the example of the
Netherlands. “Dr. Edmund Pellegrino (Center for the Advanced Study of Ethics at Georgetown
University) reported that older and handicapped people are fearful of entering Dutch hospitals. In
fact, older Dutch Physicians told him that THEY’RE fearful of entering their OWN hospitals” (n.
pag.). If a doctor is afraid of the hospital where he works, how can a patient feel safe? No one
would trust any doctor. Right now people honor physicians as a whole because they save lives,
but what honor would doctors have if they kill instead of heal? Leon R. Kass, teacher at The
College of the University of Chicago and medical doctor, relates the hypothetical situation in
which the scene is set so that doctors can legally perform euthanasia. He describes an elderly
patient who lies in a hospital confined to bed from two non-life-threatening ailments. In the dead
of night, a nurse comes into the elderly patient’s room with something for the patient’s IV. The
patient now hears a loud drip in his mind and will not sleep soundly that night. This common
occurrence would not bother the patient in a nation where physicians may not practice
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euthanasia, but under the circumstances of Kass’s situation, the patient is terrified (298). No one
would want to see a doctor much less stay in the hospital if physicians accept the practice of
euthanasia.
Not only do anti-euthanasia doctors realize that the Bible opposes euthanasia and that
euthanasia violates the patient’s trust, but they also realize that physicians can find a better
solution than euthanasia. The patient can still survive. Some examples would be an innovative
new cure, a way to prolong life until a cure is found, or the person may actually have a mistaken
diagnosis or a mistaken death date. Physicians against euthanasia consider the decision of
euthanasia a choice between certain death and possible life.
The patient’s pain can be relieved. Carrie Gordon Earll of Focus on the Family writes that
a call for euthanasia is actually a call for aid. Many people who are depressed call for this sort of
“help.” Earll also says that people are always depressed when they want to die. She also said that
patients can obtain medications to treat such a depression (n. pag.). Pain may depress patients,
but they can get through it. Carrie Gordon Earll also said that people who are dying do not need
to suffer pain. Pain relief is so far advanced that in ninety-five percent of patients, medication
can control the pain. In the other five percent of patients, medicine can lessen their unbearable
pain (n. pag.). If prescription drugs can manage pain, why would anyone want to die? People
fight to stay alive and would want to die for only three reasons. Of these three reasons—
depression, pain, and fear—medication can control the first two, depression and pain. Christian
Barnard, African surgeon who executed the first human heart transplant, drives the point home
further with an example from his life. Barnard, as a young doctor, said that he came upon a
situation in which his patient Maria agonized in unbearable pain. She had the disease of cervical
carcinoma, which affected her nerves. The pain got to be so bad that she asked Barnard
repeatedly to end her life. So Barnard one night crept away and stole a solution that would kill
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her; but when he got back, he noticed that she lay peacefully, and he decided against mercykilling. Maria left the hospital soon afterward, and she rejoiced in the fact that active euthanasia
was not practiced, or she would have missed life with her children (158). For the sake of mercy,
people lose lives that further down the road they could have saved.
Although mercy-killing terminates pain, doctors should not terminate life under the guise
of euthanasia. If Congress passed a law legalizing euthanasia, many would die that still would
have had a chance to live. Grandparents, children, or average people could all fall prey to
“mercy-killing.” Euthanasia takes a step in the wrong direction, leading ever downward to a
world with no morals, a world where killing is commonplace, and a world where nobody cares.
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Works Cited
Barnard, Christiaan. “Doctors Should Decide.” Euthanasia. Ser. Eds. David Bender, and Bruno
Leone. Ed. Neal Bemards. Opposing View Points Ser. San Diego, CA: Greehaven, 1989.
155-166.
Bender, David, and Bruno Leone Ser. Eds. Euthanasia. Ed. Neal Bernards. Opposing View
Points Ser. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 1989.
Bohlin, Raymond. “Euthanasia: “The Battle for Life Physician-Assisted Suicide.” Probe.org.
2004. Probe Ministries. 7 Oct. 2004 <http://www.probe.org/docs/euthanas.html>.
Dotts, Kris. “Euthanasia.” Ed. Kenny Wyatt. Tennessee Right to Life. 1999-2001. Tennessee
Right to 7 Oct. 2004 <http://www.tennesseerightto1ife.org/human_life_issues/
human_lifejssueseuthanasia.htm>.
Earli, Carrie Gordon. “Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.” Focus on the Family. 1 Mar.
2001: 7 Oct. 2004 <http://www.family.org/cforumIfosi/bioethics/euthanasia1
a0027997.cfm>.
The Holy Bible. King James Version.
Kass, Leon R. “Why Doctors Must Not Kill.” Last Rights? Ed. Michael M. Uhlmann. Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. 297-306.
Mathes, Michele M. “Assisted Suicide and Nursing Ethics.” MEDSURG NURSING. 13.4
(2004): 261- 263. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Northland Baptist Bible
College Lib., Dunbar, WI. 30 Sept. 2004 <http://web9.epnet.com>.
Uhlmann, Michael M. ed. Last Rights? Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998.