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Thomas Lawler
2/24/2012
Suicide and Euthanasia
The cases of Dax Cowart and Tracy Latimer are both extremely serious situations that
evoke a lot of moral and ethical thought in anyone who learns about the situations. In both of
these circumstances it is important to view many perspectives and understand the morality
concerns of all the individuals involved, especially on issues such as suicide and active and
passive euthanasia. In learning about these cases I was able to gain a personal opinion, but also
understand the stances that organizations like the American Medical Association have taken on
such matters. I will argue that Dax’s wishes and requests should have been heard and respected,
and that the killing of Tracy was not immoral, but the means by which her father killed her were.
The Dax Cowart case ushers in questions of how much control one should really have of
one’s own life. Being a victim of terrible burns, Dax made requests on multiple occasions to
have his life taken. These burns made him lose his true physical appearance, hands, and different
capabilities in his life at the age of 25. He was taken to a hospital and even though his immediate
reaction was to ask to be left to die the doctors and his mother decided that instant treatment was
the best option. As the problems continued and treatment continued Dax asked almost every day
for both passive and active euthanasia, by either the doctors killing him with chemicals or for
them to simply leave him and let him die. Dax was not in any position to leave the hospital or
carry out his wishes on his own, all he could do was lie there as the doctors ignored his wishes.
Yet continually the doctors, his attorney, and his mother always insisted on treatment as the best
option. Dax’s wishes should have been granted in the form of euthanasia in either the active or
the passive. Although it would be against a doctor’s natural reaction to choose not to treat a
patient that is in need, it was the wishes of this patient, Dax, to not be treated. It is immoral to
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force treatment upon someone who doesn’t want it and in Dax’s case treatment was close to
torture. In the worry that he was simply not sane enough to make his own decision the doctors
had a psychiatrist run tests on Dax, only to discover that he was completely coherent and sane in
his decisions. Some people have signed documents explaining that if they are ever being kept
alive by life support, then they want the plug to be pulled so that they will just die. If it’s legally
and morally permissible for someone to make that decision, then it should have been no different
for Dax to make a conscious decision that he wanted to die. How can one person tell another that
he is not allowed to choose how his life should be handled in a time of extreme pain? Dax knew
his options, his chances of living, as well as his future possibilities and yet he made his wishes
very clear to everyone he came in contact with. To hold someone’s life decision out of their own
hands is morally wrong when they are able to make the decision for themselves. This is why Dax
still to this day will fight for the patient’s right to choose whether to have treatment or not.
Tracy Latimer was a 12 year old girl who functioned at the level of a three month old
child and was murdered by her father in 1993 by way of carbon monoxide poisoning. This is a
pure form of active euthanasia by her father that is justifiable for a number of reasons. Due to
Tracy’s extreme condition of cerebral palsy she was never going to be able to function at the
level of a normal human. She had very little control of her muscles and could not walk or talk.
Tracy was constantly undergoing extremely painful and costly medical procedures, but these
never gave her progress towards being able to live a “real” life. Keeping Tracy alive was a huge
burden on the Latimer family. She had reached the point in treatment where that’s all her life
would ever be, not living, but only being kept alive. She had no hopes of developing in life or
making relationships with those around her therefore it is tough to see any reason to keep her
alive to suffer every day. The extreme burden she was and the inability to grow in life makes her
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euthanasia very justifiable. In this case Tracy was not at all able to make a decision for herself
mentally or physically, so her father took the decision into his own hands. While the killing of
his daughter to help remove suffering from everyone’s life was justifiable, the way that her father
committed these actions is very wrong. He placed his daughter in a car and connected a hose
from the exhaust to the inside to gas her with carbon monoxide. This was a very immoral way to
go about killing her, because he essentially suffocated his daughter. Carbon monoxide kills you
by taking away all of the oxygen that you should be breathing and replaces it with a tasteless,
almost odorless, toxic gas. The most important fact to consider though is that her father did what
he believed he had to for her suffering to end. Although this was a very wrong way of going
about it, the active euthanasia of Tracy is justifiable.
Both the cases of Dax and Tracy are morally similar because they both revolve around
euthanasia. Each of them was living in suffering every day, but only Dax had any sliver of a
hope for recovery. Euthanasia in these cases is morally justifiable for both. In Dax’s instance he
was literally begging to have the choice for euthanasia. Tracy was 12 years old, but functioned
like and infant and would have never been able to truly live. The American Medical Association
supports passive euthanasia under certain conditions, but has condemned active euthanasia
always. Yet in many cases, passive euthanasia can cause much greater suffering to the patient
and ends in the same result that active euthanasia would, and in active euthanasia you can end
the suffering and pain immediately. There is no major difference in killing and letting die, and in
cases of extreme suffering both actions can be not only permissible, but advised. In both Dax
and Tracy’s cases, the best option was indeed euthanasia and even though Dax survived and
recovered to live a successful life, he will still tell anyone who will listen that patients should
have the right to refuse treatment.
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Bibliography
Cahn, Steven M. Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues. 5th ed. New York: Oxford UP,
2012. Print.
"Carbon Monoxide (CO)." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency. Web. 23 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.epa.gov/iaq/co.html>.
Rachels, Stuart, and James Rachels. The Elements of Moral Philosophy. New York: McGraw-Hill
Higher Education, 2010. Print.