Life/Death Issues (Research); Advanced Medical Directives

Advanced Medical Directives are decisions made by someone regarding medical treatments they want to take in future, in precaution if they are unable to make any mentally sound decisions for themselves when needed. There are 3 types of directives, living will, power of attorney and health care proxy.

LIVING WILL: This is a written document that specifies what types of medical treatment are desired. A living will can be very specific or very general. Most of them are stating if life-preserving measures should be used when he/she is suffering some incurable disease and so on. While the more detailed one will consist of what kind of drugs is preferred by him/her.

POWER OF ATTORNEY: In this case, individuals may write legal documents providing power of attorney to others in the case of serious weakening medical condition. The power of attorney allows an individual to make bank transactions, sign Social Security checks, apply for disability, or simply write checks to pay the utility bill while an individual is medically incapacitated.

HEALTH PROXY: This is a legal document when one decides and appoints someone to decide for him/her in the future when he/she is unable to make decisions on health services required.

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=2158

Life/Death Issues (Research) ; Pro Life, Pro Choice, Ritual Suicide, Jack Kevorkian

Pro-Life is the self-description for those in North America and Great Britain who are of the general political opinion that abortion, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and other issues regarding the sanctity of life are morally wrong and should be illegal in most cases
Pro-Choice people are people who believe that the government should not outlaw abortion and believe that the choice of terminating pregnancy should be an option for pregnant women use a common self-description.

Ritual suicide is the act of suicide motivated by a religious, spiritual, or traditional ritual.
An extreme interpretation of Hindu custom historically practiced, mostly 2000 onwards, was self-immolation (suttee) by a widow as an assurance that she will be with her husband for the next life. This is displayed as she burns herself at her husband’s funeral or prior to that.

Other rituals of self-immolation or self-starvation were used by Hindu, Jain and Buddhist monks for religious or philosophical purposes, or as a form of extreme non-violent protest. In China, some groups would practice suicide for similar reasons.

In Japan, rituals of suicide like seppuku were practiced. Zooming into case of Japan, Seppuku was popular in the sense as people considered death much better than dishonor. It involves the disembowelment with the use of a sword.

Jack Kevorkian a.k.a Dr. Death has assisted many people in committing suicide. He believes that everybody have the right to decide if they should live or die and there should not be any interference from the government laws.

Jack Kevorkian sits with his "suicide machine," a device consisting of tubes, hypodermic needles, saline solution, a muscle relaxant, and a lethal drug.

Life/Death Issues (Research) ; Euthanasia

WHAT IS EUTHANASIA?
http://www.euthanasia.com/argumentsagainsteuthanasia.html

It is the INTENTIONAL killing to a dependant human being supposedly for his/her benefit. There are two kinds, active and passive euthanasia. Active euthanasia involves the direct causing a person’s death either by a lethal injection or “pulling the pluck”. While passive euthanasia is purposely not giving the necessities to a patient in order to kill him/her. Any medical action that does not intend to take the life of the patient, it will not be considered euthanasia.

AGAINST:
- Euthanasia activists say it is for the terminally ill BUT it is hard to define the term “terminally-ill” and now it is used on people who are not under that classification too.
- It is the rejection of importance and value of human life
- It can become a means of cost containment in the medical industry. Comparing to resources needed to cure a person, euthanasia is a much cheaper alternative.
- Currently, you have to sign the AMD to agree to go through euthanasia when needed but it is feared that euthanasia might become involuntary. As things will be different once it is made legal.
- Simply, humans should not play God. It can never be predicted for sure when is the patient going to die. There might even be a cure that will be developed in time to come?
- It is not foolproof that the person who is approving to euthanasia is in the right state of mind.

FOR:
- A person who is going to die in immediate future has the choice to deny treatment and die, as operating against a will of a person is not right.
- Patient is already unable to think for himself, living in that kind of state will not be any better than dying. It is helping the patient to relieve his pain at the same time.
- Patients should have the right to die with dignity, as euthanasia offers.

For graphs and charts on Euthanasia statistics: http://www.euthanasia.com/charts.html

Crime and Punishment ; Death Penalty

Personally i feel that death penalty is deterrent not murder and i believe i am not alone. According to a survey done by Harris Interactive (2004 Jan), more than 2/3 of Americans actually support death penalties to be carried out in their country. Since human rights have been introduced and emphasised to the public, abolishing of the death penalty has been pushed for. Especially in democratic countries such as USA, UK and Europe where everyone is supposed to "have a say".

The capital punishment is deemed as not the perfect solution. As quoted " two wrongs do not get a right". Taking the example of China, it has executed at least 3400 people in 2006. This was a alarming figure and had led to much disputes. People had argued that it was unfair punishment as most people who got executed were people who could not afford lawyers or get anyone to stand as witness. Executing them creates the possibilty of executing someone who is magligned, in other words, innocent. Which contradicts the fundamental purpose of the law which is to bring justice. Also that immediately violates the basic human rights which is the right to life and a right not to be punished in a cruel way.

Nonetheless to counter the argument, think. Would you prefer to execute murderers even though there might be no deterrent effect or not to execute any murderers and allow them killing a bigger group of innocent victims? Any rationale being will choose the former, which is to execute the murderers. Indeed there might be a slight possibility that the innocent might get executed but isn't it better than to let one escape and continue with his wrong doings and harming more people in the process? Thus it is a risk and sacrifice that must be taken in view of the public's interest.

Rehabilation and life imprisonment has been suggested as an better alternative of death penalty. As criminals might not be sure of what they are doing at that point of time and some feel that life imprisonment is worse than death penalty actually. These might be true to a certain extent but whether if life imprisonment is worse is not for us to decide. Taking into consideration the example of USA, there is a yearly average of 15000 murders, the fact that 1000 executions is done in 30+ years is proof that capital punishment is reserved for the worst of the worst lot. What is there to be worry about then?

All in all, i would not deny that criminals who commited crimes such as drug trafficking, 1st degree murder, treason should be executed. There is one takeaway from the difference in statistics in China and USA and i believe it is very much due to the country's own jury system. Therefore, China cannot be used as a basis for argument to prove that death penalty is more of a murder than deterrent. Thinking about it, if i were a murderer, i would really think twice in doing something that would make me lose my life, won't you?