A speech in favor of euthanasia

By Hadva Ben-Shetrit. The speech was presented in the frame Public speaking course

With the development of medicine in the last few centuries, an issue that preoccupies many countries in the world came to the fore - euthanasia, which is the hastening of the death of a terminally ill patient, that is, a patient with an incurable disease by their caregivers. The source of the dilemma is the recognition of the fact that there are various diseases that are incurable at this stage and end in death after a mask of pain and agony. In this situation, it often happens that doctors are faced with various death wishes of their patients. Is it permissible for doctors, who have sworn to save lives, to accede to their request and end their lives?

Doctors therefore have three ways to choose:

1. Adhere to the doctor's oath and continue to do everything in order to prolong the patients' lives
2. Passive euthanasia - not actively taking any step that would artificially prolong the patients' lives and "let nature take its course".
3. Active euthanasia - injecting a "death injection" into the sick, thus rescuing them from their agony immediately, as they requested.

I believe that if a person in his right mind requested euthanasia after learning that he had an incurable disease, this should be allowed. This solution prevents euthanasia against the patient's will and gives the patient the ability to choose to end his life In this speech he justified my view with the help of two arguments: the first deals with the autonomy of each person to die with dignity, and the second argument deals with the terrible suffering of the patient and his family.

First we will discuss the right die with dignity

Medicine has provided many important solutions to diseases that were considered fatal, and has extended a person's life expectancy, without simultaneously improving the quality of his life. This creates a situation in which people live according to the medical definition that distinguishes between life and death, but these are not lives and certainly lives without dignity. Euthanasia gives people the right to die with dignity. The importance of this argument is brought to you in the following story:  Chantal Sabir from France begged to be helped to die. She suffered from severe pain and a terrible sinus disease that caused her face to distort beyond recognition and her vision to disappear. The tumor that spread over her face and caused her great suffering was an active tumor that cannot be cured. Chantal fought for the right to end her life with dignity. On March 19, 2008, after the court finally rejected her request, Chantal took her own life "I can no longer bear the pain, I have reached the limit of my ability," she said.

Chantal could have committed suicide even without the help of the medical system, she did not need anyone to do so, but she saw such suicide as surrendering to the disease and a violation of human dignity.

The second argument is Alleviating the suffering of the terminally ill patient and his family

Humanity tries to be humane towards animals, and "anesthetizes" with the intention of sparing pain, but when it comes to humans, anesthesia to prevent pain is prohibited by law. In my opinion, the hardest thing to deal with in a person's life is seeing their loved one suffer and knowing that they are unable to help.

About a year ago the cancer was discovered in my father's body, the process of decline to death lasted for about three months during which my father faced the knowledge that his days were numbered and in addition he had to deal with the intense pain that accompanied the disease. I had an amazing father who became a shadow of a man who was fed and filled with medicine.

 My father often stated that he would rather die, during that time we did not think for a moment about the option of euthanasia, we wanted my father to live no matter how much physical and mental effort we would have to put in for that and still today I would give anything to bring him back to life, even for one day.

In my father's case, the question of euthanasia did not come up, my father fought to live because we wanted to and we fought because we did not want to lose him, unfortunately we came to know closely the suffering that a terminally ill person and his family go through, therefore I believe that the terminally ill person has the right to make it easier for his family and especially for himself by A choice in the way he will end his life.

To conclude the discussion on euthanasia

• I believe that every person has the right to choose the way to end his life and we as a society are obliged to allow him to do so
• As long as a person lives he has to live, a life in suffering without a way out and without dignity is not life and a person should be allowed to end it
• I am in favor of a law that allows any sane person to request euthanasia if he is terminally ill

Another possible argument: economic argument

"Of course we would like no one to die and for everyone to receive the best and most expensive treatment, but in reality the health budget is large but not infinite, so we have a limited number of beds, and a limited number of doctors, and the medicine basket also does not have all the medicines we would like to put . And now we have to make a terrible decision about who will live and who won't, and in this situation, in my opinion, it's better to save those who can be saved and help children with cancer who can live another seventy years and not give painful and humiliating treatments to a terminally ill patient, even so, all we can do for him is to get another month or two of torments of hell"

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