End The Suffering

Allow me to paint you all a picture:
Your grandmother has been diagnosed with Altzheimers. This disease will destroy her; she will forget everything, from her closest family members to how to eat. A few months after she was diagnosed, you go over to her house and see her outside in her garden. Almost immediately, she stands up and looks around, scared and worried. You realize she has forgotten where she is in only the few minutes of her being outside. It won't take very long for her to forget everything. She will lay in a cold hospital bed, surrounded by people she doesn't know, gasping for air and not knowing who these people telling her they love her are. But, in a moment where she's still herself, she tells you that there is a doctor who will help her pass peacefully. He will put her into a deep, un-conscious sleep and will then give her a drug that will stop her heart.
Do you let her suffer, or grant her last wish?

Dr. Jack Kevorkian helped over 100 terminally ill, suffering people end their lives and was convicted of murder. These people went to him, asked and begged him to help end their suffering, and he did. He conducted interviews with these patients, asking them what they wanted, never once suggesting he euthanise them. To think that this man, who only ever wanted to help people, was sent to prison for eight years.

In my opinion, to keep somebody alive who is in pain is considered torture. To keep somebody in a state of suffering, in a state of pain, in a state of unwanted physical discomfort is considered torture. Murder is an act of killing a person with a malicious intent, against this person's will. Euthanasia is ending a person's suffering. We take our pets to the vet when they are suffering to put them to sleep; why would we keep a human being, who knows what is going on, from ending their lives gracefully?

Honestly, after watching You Don't Know Jack, I've never felt so horrible before. To watch the videos of people saying, "Please, please just end my life," brought tears to my eyes. This may not be a very fun or very bubbly post, so I apologize.

To those who think this is considered playing God: wouldn't taking any kind of medicine be considered playing God? Isn't chemotherapy playing God? Isn't going to a doctor to give birth "playing God"? We prolong lives that aren't meant to be prolonged, but we can't end the lives of those who are suffering? You'd rather torture a person than to give them that final request? I pity your family members.

If ever I am diagnosed with any terminal illness, ever in such excrutiating pain as these people, I will end my life, with my family by my side. I only hope that one doctor will give me that last dream, that last wish, that last escape.