English coursework - Euthanasia Speech

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

English coursework – Euthanasia Speech

I stand before you today in confrontation. I stand before you today equal to any man. I stand before you today with a challenge!

I challenge any man who deems, their morals, their ethics, their beliefs, their conscience enough to find themselves fit to judge others. I challenge any man who deems himself fit to pass judgement upon another’s life. I challenge any man who believes they can play god. I challenge any man who believes in euthanasia.

How can you believe in something you cannot justify? There is no justification in euthanasia so how can it even be considered to be preformed, how could anyone ever justify the taking of another’s life. A mercy killing is the literal definition of the word euthanasia, tell me, where is the mercy in killing. Death and murder have no variations, no catalysts or pathways leading around them, murder and death are what they are. Therefore how can anyone make that decision, the decision upon another’s life? What could ever drive a person to believe they have a power others do not, the power of life and death. That they can decide who lives and who dies, and by what aspects can they base such a decision? Whether a life is worthy or not, whether they are using life justly or just wasting it, are they just a drain on society, are they productive in society. By that analysis of life any person who has no job and so drains on society, any person who has no positive aspect on life should be killed? Is that their idea? That just because the body cannot perform a duty then the mind is not worth its life. They say that they can no longer produce commodities, they are like an old machine that no longer works, they are like an old horse which has become incurably lame, they are like a cow which no longer gives milk.

What does one do with such an old machine? It is thrown on the scrap heap. What does one do with a lame horse, with such an unproductive cow?

No, I do not want to continue the comparison to the end--however fearful the justification for it and the symbolic force of it are. We are not dealing with machines, horses and cows whose only function is to serve mankind, to produce goods for man. One may smash them; one may slaughter them as soon as they no longer fulfil this function.

No, we are dealing with human beings, ...

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What does one do with such an old machine? It is thrown on the scrap heap. What does one do with a lame horse, with such an unproductive cow?

No, we are dealing with human beings, our fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters. With poor people, sick people, if you like unproductive people.

When does a life become worthless, the happiest man in the world is not necessarily the most productive, happiness and joy and love of life can remain when the ability to be productive has gone, true happiness lies within. Yet the manic depressants who have a perfect body, who are filled with hate, those who make life a desolate landscape of dejected feelings, those who turn the gift of life into a hell of misery, do they deserve life more than the terminally ill.

True is it not that it is the people themselves that wish to die, that wish to be aided in suicide, to escape life to the sweet release of death. True it is those with the terminal illness that that make the sole decision upon there life, but what state are they in to make such a decision. Has their view of life possible been distorted by their illness and so are in no fit position to make such a decision. Yet able or not, no matter what perspective, whatever spin you can put on euthanasia you can never hide the prominent fact that is staring you in the face, it is murder, it is death.

Euthanasia branches from one of the evilest men who ever lived, its roots lay deep in the corruptness of Hitler. it was the idea of stamping out those who weaken the human race, leaving only those who are the fittest and the optimum, exterminating the weak, survival of the fittest, throwing the human race thousands of years back down the timeline, to when being able bodied meant being ale to live. He was trying to bring the barbaric nature back into human civilisation. How then, how is it that anything can be conceived rite when it had rooted from Hitler and cost countless lives? It is pointless barbaric killing. It is blood lust!

Now consider the case of Dr Harold Shipman, he was a simple G.P who went on ordinary house calls to old people, except that he wasn’t ordinary and his house calls and remedies were not normal. When inspecting an old patient he would somehow diagnose incurable cancer every time and murder them via lethal injection without their consent, he would simply kill them without their knowing. This man was found guilty of 26 murder cases like this but it could easily have been hundreds, he would just certify death and as he was a G.P no body would query him. After given continuous life sentences he hung himself in his cell. In his defence he claimed upon the act of euthanasia.

I do not believe that this needs any annotating or explaining, I do not believe that after hearing the story of doctor Harold shipman anyone can argue on his sanity or whether what he was doing was morally, legally, ethically rite. Hundreds of murders for the sake of murdering, not one patient ever contemplated him taking their lives and he believes it is what they wanted? Euthanasia in any form is madness.

The hospice movement started in this country because people were dying badly, often in pain. In thirty years over 200 hospices have opened and 240 hospitals now have specialist nurses. Almost 100,000 people each year are visited by home care teams, over half of all those dying of cancer. Countries like Holland where euthanasia is commonly practised have poor hospice facilities. Euthanasia can be a lazy option. Doctors may never realise they have anything to learn. Few things are more rewarding to me than visiting someone dying at home, relieving pain and other symptoms so the person can start to live again. Restoring dignity, quality of life and giving people back control over their lives is far better than fatal injections. Most people are visibly relieved when they are told euthanasia is not an option. When symptoms are properly controlled, fears dealt with, practical help is provided and people feel safe, it is very rare for people to ask again for death by euthanasia.

No my companions, we will not give up, we will not frail away from the fight, we will stand firm and oppress that which is euthanasia, we will not let it be legalised, for to legalise euthanasia would be to legalise murder.

By Scott Fernquest