In the early 1950s, in Hillsboro Country Hospital, a 60-year-old woman was dying of cancer. There was no chance for recovery. Suffering from extreme pain, she wasted away from 140 pounds to 80 pounds. Every time when others came near her bed, she would beg them to help her to die. Dr. Herman. N. Sanders, her doctor- in-charge, found there was little he could do to ease her suffering. So he decided to help his patient out by giving her four lethal injections of air. The old lady died in ten minutes, painlessly and peacefully. This is the most famous euthanasia case in American history.
Euthanasia, helping to release patients like this old lady from unbearable pain, is also called voluntary suicide or mercy killing. It’s not only reasonable, but also humane.
Death should not be viewed as a failure, but as a normal and natural stage of life. People have the right to die. Death is as natural as birth. Both of them sometimes are hard processes requiring assistance. There is no need to artificially maintain life beyond the point when people can never regain consciousness.
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on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 4:11 am and is filed under journals.
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