Voluntary Euthanasia

          Voluntary Euthanasia, meaning “good death” in Greek, refers to the practice of ending a life in a painless manner. Voluntary euthanasia (VE) and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) have been the focus of great controversy in recent years. Some forms of voluntary euthanasia is legal in Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the US states of Oregon and Washington. In ancient Greece and Rome, before the coming of Christianity, attitudes toward infanticide, active euthanasia, and suicide had tended to be tolerant. Many ancient Greeks and Romans had no cogently defined belief in the inherent value of individual human life, and pagan physicians likely performed frequent abortions as well as both voluntary and involuntary mercy killings. Although the Hippocratic Oath, which was written between 300 and 400 BC, prohibited doctors from giving 'a deadly drug to anybody, not even if asked for,' or from suggesting such a course of action, few ancient Greek or Roman physicians followed the oath faithfully. Throughout classical antiquity, there was widespread support for voluntary death as opposed to prolonged agony, and physicians complied by often giving their patients the poisons they requested. On other hand, in 17^th Century, Common Law Tradition Prohibits Suicide and Assisted Suicide in the American Colonies. For over 700 years, the Anglo American common law tradition has punished or otherwise disapproved of both suicide and assisting suicide. For the most part, the early American colonies adopted the common law approach. For example, the legislators of the Providence Plantations, which would later become Rhode Island, declared, in 1647, that '[s]elf murder is by all agreed to be the most unnatural, and it is by this present Assembly declared, to be that, wherein he that doth it, kills himself out of a premeditated hatred against his own life or other humor. Euthanasia should not be legalized because it devalues human life and it is a start of a slippery slope.

          In order to argue that euthanasia devalues life, one must argue why one should value it in general. Humans traditionally attribute great value to life. Some will argue that life is valued merely because o­ne’s care for it usually acts as a motivator, and gives the person reason or justification for her/his actions. All human beings are to be valued, irrespective of age, sex, race, religion, social status or their potential for achievement. From a religious perspective, all three of the world’s major religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, all agree that life must be valued since it is a gift from God. From an evolutionary perspective, a person must value life because her/his prime concern should be survival and procreation; suicide opposes both of these, as it disallows further procreation, and a dead person can no longer aid in the preservation of humanity. According to the philosopher Immanuel Kant said that rational human beings should be treated as an end in themselves and not as a means to something else. The fact that we are human has value in itself. People’s inherent value doesn't depend on anything else - it doesn't depend on whether they are having a good life that they enjoy, or whether they are making other people's lives better. People exist, so they have value. People shouldn't treat themselves as a means to their own ends. This means that people shouldn't end their lives just because it seems the most effective way of putting an end to their suffering. To do that is not to respect their inherent worth. Therefore the deliberate taking of human life should be prohibited except in self-defense or the legitimate defense of others.

          Voluntary euthanasia will cause slippery slope. Many people worry that if voluntary euthanasia were to become legal, it would not be long before involuntary euthanasia would start to happen. People concluded that it was virtually impossible to ensure that all acts of euthanasia were truly voluntary and that any liberalization of the law in the United Kingdom could not be abused. People were also concerned that vulnerable people - the elderly, lonely, sick or distressed - would feel pressure, whether real or imagined, to request early death. This is called the slippery slope argument. In general form, it says that if people allow something relatively harmless today, they may start a trend that results in something currently unthinkable becoming accepted. If people change the law and accept voluntary euthanasia, they will not be able to keep it under control. Doctors may soon start killing people without bothering with their permission. There is a huge difference between killing people who ask for death under appropriate circumstances, and killing people without their permission. Absolute legalization, or even permission for specific instances of euthanasia, also allows for abuse of the system. It is a another form of slippery slope. That is, if one allows for “acceptable reasons” for euthanasia, it would not be difficult for both patients and doctors to exploit the system, and defining “acceptable” deaths would prove most challenging. Patients may look for any way with which they can fit themselves into the criteria, and doctors may be influenced by the extra salary they could acquire by serving those patients. Naturally, one could contest that this argument exhibits all the characteristics of the “slippery-slope” fallacy, and indeed, it does. one should note, however, that it is precisely because of this reasoning that our laws regarding murder are so stringent – if there are specific cases other than mental diseases for which we make exceptions to our murder laws, it is not unreasonable to expect that those accused of murder will, for care of their own welfare and fear of punishment, actively pursue those “loopholes”. Furthermore, the fear of the result of legalization is not unjustified; o­ne need o­nly look at a country in which active euthanasia is legal, such as the Netherlands, to see the reason for worry. For a person to die by euthanasia there, courts decided that those suffering from unbearable suffering that could not be treated otherwise and persistently requested it, could choose to die by euthanasia. In 1990, it was found that 2 700 people died by euthanasia, 1 000 of these people died by active euthanasia. Of these, 60% made their wishes known in some form of writing, but not by the standard that their health association required. The remaining 40% had not expressed a desire to have their lives terminated. Of course, it could be argued that some of these patients had expressed a desire to die, but not officially; that does not speak, however, for those who did not desire their death at all. Let us even grant that all of these 400 people had requested death but not officially; the mere fact that in 40% of all cases, neither the patients nor their doctors complied with the laws regulating the practice and had no legal documents to support their cases in any form, indicates the facility with which the system can be abused. Eventually, voluntary euthanasia will lead to involuntary euthanasia and take away the life of people who do not want to die.

          In conclusion, voluntary euthanasia should not be morally permissible. Not only does it devalue human life, but it is also cause slippery slope and very susceptible to abuse which will also lead to another slippery slope, as demonstrated by the Netherlands case study. According to Jean Davis, President of the World Federation of the Right to Die Societies : "If we now return to the semantics of voluntary euthanasia let us try replacing "kill" by "help to die ... when we do this many of the most emotive objections to its legalization fade away." People claim that legalizing euthanasia is to help those patients to get out of suffer and is for their own good. But for my own opinion, how could people help those patients when they are not even alive anymore, when they are no longer see and feel anything anymore, when they are not exist in this world anymore. Euthanasia should not be legalized.

Refferences

Brock, D. W. (1992). Voluntary Active Euthanasia. The Hastings Center Report, 22(2), 10-22. Retrieved from http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/Courses/DanBrockVolactEuth.pdf.

Ethics - Euthanasia: Anti-euthanasia arguments. (n.d.). BBC. Retrieved January 10, 2013, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/against/against_1.shtml

Euthanasia. (n.d.). Euthanasia.com. Retrieved January 7, 2013, from http://euthanasia.com/

Historical Timeline. (n.d.). Euthanasia - ProCon.org. Retrieved January 10, 2013, from http://euthanasia.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000130

Rizkalla, M. (n.d.). Active Euthanasia. Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles. Retrieved January 7, 2013, from http://www.coptichymns.net/module-library-viewpub-tid-1-pid-331.html

Sanctity of Human Life: Suicide, Physician-Assisted Suicide, and Euthanasia. (2010). Retrieved from http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Position_Papers/pp_downloads/PP_Sanctity_of_Human_Life_Suicide_Euthanasia.pdf.

Saunders , W. L., & Fragoso, M. A. Should We Legalize Voluntary Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide? Retrieved from http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF09F59.pdf.

Capital Punishment Essay

          Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is punishment by death for a crime. According to the human rights group Amnesty International, as of 2011, two-thirds of countries worldwide have abolished capital punishment. Over the past decade, an average of three states per year has abolished the death penalty. The ability of a state to impose the death penalty (Capital Punishment) goes back to the sovereign rights of kings.  According to John Locke, political power itself is “the right of making laws with the penalties of death.” In the 18th Century, England had 223 capital crimes. In the United States, death was a standard punishment for even non-violent crimes such as burglary, robbery, counterfeiting, theft, fraud, blasphemy, idolatry, sodomy, bestiality, and even altering inspected tobacco. The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes.  For centuries, capital punishment has been revoked and applied. Lately, capital punishment still exists in certain country. According J.R.R. Tolkien (n.d.) “Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment.” In the modern world now people live in, capital punishment should be abolished because of human rights, and its deterrent effects.

          According to the morality of human rights, every human being has inherent dignity and is inviolable. The death penalty is a denial of the most basic human rights; it violates one of the most fundamental principles under widely accepted human rights law that states must recognize the right to life. The UN General Assembly, the representative body of recognized States, has called for an end to the death penalty and human rights organizations agree that its imposition breaches fundamental enshrined human rights norms. Convention is quickly moving towards a position in support of worldwide abolition. The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Right (UDHR), which the U.S. helped draft in the aftermath of World War II and adopted in 1948.Under Article 3 of the UDHR, life is a human right. This makes the death penalty our most fundamental human rights violation. On October 10, 2011, CCR joined the world in commemorating the 9th Annual World Day Against the Death Penalty, by issuing a position paper entitled, The US Tortures Before it Kills: An Examination of the Death Row Experience from a Human Rights Perspective, which analyzes life on death row—including decades in solitary confinement with limited human contact, and the intolerable process of repeatedly coming within hours of execution—as torture under international human rights law. According to the Convention Against Torture (CAT), a treaty ratified by the US in 1994, torture is defined, in part, as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is inflicted on a person for such purposes as […] punishing him for an act he […] has committed or is suspected of having committed.” Torture is a crime against humanity, a war crime, and a violation of the Geneva Conventions, as reflected in the statutes of the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, among other judicial authorities. Over the last 15 years, a substantial body of law has developed that sets forth the elements of torture under customary international law, which largely reflects the definition of torture under the CAT. Examining the death penalty from a human rights perspective not only highlights the impact of denying the most basic right on all other rights but also demonstrates why the only “solution” to the death penalty is to permanently end its use. If the injustices and practicalities associated with capital punishment could somehow be erased—the costs cut, the racial and class biases removed, and all possibilities for “error” eliminated–the government still cannot do it because it violates fundamental human rights. A human rights based approach does not take issue with the accuracy, technique, or timeliness of an execution. It provides a strict standard with which to say simply and unequivocally—the death penalty is wrong.

          Whether or not the death penalty has a deterrent effect is a hotly debated topic in the popular press, political forums, and academic literature. High-profile executions, such as that of the Crips gang cofounder and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Tookie Williams on December 13, 2005, bring the death penalty and its potential deterrent effects  to the forefront in the national media. However, based on the recent studies, capital punishment does not have deterrent effects and does not deter murder. A New York Times survey demonstrated that the homicide rate in states with capital punishment have been 48% to 101% higher than those without the death penalty.According to W.L.Williams (n.d.)  “I am not convinced that capital punishment, in and of itself, is a deterrent to crime because most people do not think about the death penalty before they commit a violent or capital crime.” Most people who commit murders either do not expect to be caught or do not carefully weigh the differences between a possible execution and life in prison before they act.  Even authorities recognize that capital punishment does not deter crime. Based on research of Death Penalty Information Center, 2 out of every 3 law enforcement officers do not believe that capital punishment decreases the rate of homicides. According to the research, 84% of current and former presidents of the country’s top academic criminological societies reject the notion that research shows any deterrent effect from the death penalty. We must define the question correctly.  We are not asking whether the threat of punishment, in general, deters crime, nor whether there should be heavy penalties for murder.  The issue at stake is this:  Does capital punishment, in a form which has been or might be practiced in the world, provide a better deterrent to the criminal than long imprisonment?  In particular, is it likely that expanding the death penalty will lead to fewer murders?  If not, capital punishment offers no practical benefits to weigh against its social costs.

          In conclusion, capital punishment has no benefit whether from human rights perspective or its deterrent effects. In other hand, capital punishment sometimes sends innocent people to death. Innocent people will be killing for something that they did not commit. According to P.Simon (n.d.) “As long as you have capital punishment there is no guarantee that innocent people won't be put to death.” In my opinion, punish the criminal with death penalty is being too kind. They don’t even have enough time to feel the pain during the execution, but long life imprisonment will make them suffer and will the pain. Isolated in the prison is the best way to punish the criminal. Therefore the Death Penalty should be abolished. I am completely against the Death Penalty and Pro-Suffering for these criminals by living the rest of their lives in jail.

References 

Bizos, G. (n.d.). THE DEATH PENALTY SHOULD BE ABOLISHED. Retrieved from http://www.lrc.org.za/Docs/Papers/DEATH%20PENALITY_SHOULD_BE_ABOLISHED.pdf.

Center for Constitutional Rights. (n.d.). The Death Penalty is a Human Rights Violation: An Examination of the Death Penalty in the U.S. from a Human Rights Perspective.

Retrieved December 28, 2012, from http://ccrjustice.org/files/CCR%20Death%20Penalty%20Factsheet.pdf

FACT SHEET: THE DEATH PENALTY DOES NOT DETER CRIME. (n.d.).

Retrieved December 28, 2012, from http://www.nodeathpenaltywi.org/PDF/Deterrence%20Fact%20Sheet%209%2020%2006.pdf

GAVRILĂ, A. (2011). SHOULD THE DEATH PENALTY BE ABOLISHED? ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST THE CENTURIES-OLD PUNISHMENT. Retrieved from http://jcc.icc.org.ro/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/JCC-vol-1-no-2-2011-pages-82-98.pdf.

Hood, R. (2010). Towards Global Abolition of the Death Penalty: Progress and Prospects. Retrieved from http://www.deathpenaltyproject.org/assets/12/original/Towards_Global_Abolition_of_the_Death_Penalty_by_Prof_Roger_Hood.pdf?1273573377.

Lamperti, J. (n.d.). Does Capital Punishment Deter Murder? A brief look at the evidence. Retrieved from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/teaching_aids/books_articles/JLpaper.pdf.

Mcdonald, J. F. (n.d.). Capital Punishment. Retrieved from http://www.catholicpamphlets.net/pamphlets/CAPITAL%20PUNISHMENT.pdf.

Michigan State University and Death Penalty Information Center (2006). The Death Penalty. Retrieved December 29, 2012, from http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/c/about/history/history.PDF.

Rubin, P. (2006, February 1). Statistical Evidence on Capital Punishment and the Deterrence of Homicide. Retrieved December 28, 2012, from http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/blog/TestimonyPaulRubin.pdf

Schabas, W. (2003). The Abolition of Capital Punishment from an International Law Perspective. Retrieved from http://www.isrcl.org/Papers/Schabas.pdf.

Teton County Model UN (2011). General Assembly Third Committee, Topic 3: Abolishing the Death Penalty. Retrieved from http://www.ic21.org/assets/415/GA-3_2011Death_Penalty_final.pdf?1317319464.

How can stress affect people in the modern society?

       Stress is often defined as a mismatch between the demands placed on us and the way we cope with these demands. People can sometimes recognize the short-term effects of stress but may not be aware of how harmful the long-term effects can be. A U.S. Public Health Survey estimated that 70 percent to 80 percent of Americans experience at least “some stress” every two weeks and visit a physician each year for a stress-related disorder. Job-related stress costs U.S. businesses $60million annually (DiClemente, 2006). More than half of working adults-and 47 percent of all Americans-say they are concerned with the amount of stress in their lives, according to a new telephone survey conducted Jan, 12-24 by APA's (American Psychological Association) Practice Directorate in partnership with the National Women's Health Resource Center and iVillage.com. In the current modern society people live in, everyone seems to be experiencing too much stress and it can bring up several effects to us such as anxiety, insomnia and ageing.

       Anxiety is a rather extreme response to stress. Anxiety Disorders affect about 40 million American adults age 18years and older (about 18%) in a given year, causing them to be filled with fearfulness and uncertainty. Simple life stress is easily one of the most common reasons that people develop anxiety. Some stress-related anxiety is normal; however, severe and excessive anxiety is classified as an anxiety disorder. Anxiety is usually characterized by irrational fear and worry. This type of stress effect may last for six months at a time. There are several types of anxiety disorders: panic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorders and social phobias, among others. Physically, the symptoms associated with anxiety are similar to those caused by stress. Sometimes, it may have no specific cause, unlike fear, the cause of which can be seen and dealt with by fighting or running away. Based on research, Panic disorder affects about 6 million American adults and is twice as common in women as men. PTSD (post­traumatic stress disorder) affects about 7.7 million American adults, but it can occur at any age, including childhood. Women are more likely to develop PTSD than men, and there is some evidence that susceptibility to the disorder may run in families.

       Out of the many effects, insomnia is also one of the harmful effects that trigger by stress. Numbers of people who have insomnia have increase lately. Some surveys have shown that 30% to 35% of Americans reported difficulty falling asleep during the previous year and about 10% reported problems with long standing insomnia. Having insomnia means people often have trouble falling or staying asleep. Insomnia can be either a short-term or a long-term problem. Often insomnia lasts for just a few nights. If people cannot sleep almost every night for 2 weeks, that means it is a long-term insomnia. Insomnia that lasts this long usually continues until the cause is identified and treated. The research shows that Insomnia affects 1 in 3 adults every year in the US. According to the CCHS criteria, in 2002, an estimated 13.4% of the household population aged 15 or older—that is, 3.3 million Canadians—had insomnia. On average, they slept 6.5 hours a night, compared with 7.5 hours for those without insomnia, but many insomniacs got far less than 6.5 hours of sleep. For example, 18% of them averaged sleep less than 5 hours a night. People with insomnia may have trouble concentrating, remembering or accomplishing daily tasks. It will seriously affect people’s daily life.

       Last but not least, stress also bring the effect of ageing. It makes people grow old faster. As people get aged by stress, the immune system gets affected. Stress exacerbates the effects of aging on immune functioning, and that the immune consequences are lasting and deleterious. Given the social bedrock of human existence, the most stressful experiences people endure are typically those that strain or break social connections. According to Herbert & Cohen (1993), negative interpersonal events have been shown to be powerful modulators of immune processes. As the immune system aged, it becomes less able to distinguish self from nonself (that is, antigens). As a result, autoimmune disorders become more common. Besides that, macrophages (which ingest antigens) destroy bacteria, cancer cells, and other antigens more slowly. This slowdown may be one reason that cancer is more common among older people. Furthermore, there are fewer white blood cells capable of responding to new antigens. Thus, when older people encounter a new antigen, the body is less able to remember and defend against it. A study published in the Dec. 26, 2011, Archives of Internal Medicine found that a "high percentage" of older adults are receiving cancer screenings.

       In conclusion, people who live in the current modern society will surely have to face the problem of stress. People must learn how to manage and deal with these stresses. According to Mary Lucy Denise Henner, an American actress, producer and author, being in control of your life and having realistic expectations about your day-to-day challenges are the keys to stress management, which is perhaps the most important ingredient to living a happy, healthy and rewarding life. For my own opinion, stress can bring many effects to people and it can be very harmful, but stress can be control. People can de-stress in many ways. By knowing how to handle these stresses can help people live happier and healthier.

References 

American Psychological Association (2012). Stress in america:our health at risk. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2011/final-2011.pdf.

Delves, P. J. (n.d.). Effects of Aging on the Immune System: Biology of the Immune System: Merck Manual Home Edition. Retrieved from http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/immune_disorders/biology_of_the_immune_system/effects_of_aging_on_the_immune_system.html

Henry, T. A. (2012, January 2). High percentage of elderly patients screened for cancer - amednews.com. American Medical Association. Retrieved from http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/01/02/prsb0102.htm

NIMH · Home. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/anxiety-disorders/nimhanxiety.pdf

Padget, D. A., & Glaser, R. (2003). How stress influences the immune response. TRENDS in Immunology. Retrieved from http://www.direct-ms.org/sites/default/files/Stress%20and%20immunity.pdf.

Stambor, Z. (2006). Stressed out nation. 37(4), 28. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr06/nation.aspx.

Tjepkema, M. (2005). Insomnia. Health Reports, 17(1), 10. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/ads-annonces/82-003-x/pdf/4225221-eng.pdf.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (n.d.). Anxiety Disorders.NationalInstitute ofMentalHealth. Retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/anxiety-disorders/nimhanxiety.pdf.

Retrieved from http://www.palgrave.com/psychology/malim/pdfs/chap_11.pdf.