Everyday people are diagnosed with painful terminal illnesses. For most, the pain will be unbearable. One option for people facing potentially lethal diseases is euthanasia, or physician assisted suicide, and because it is a distinguished means of death, it should be legal in all states. In the state of Oregon and throughout the Netherlands, a test was conducted over a nine-year period, legalizing euthanasia and surveying what people would choose, if euthanasia were a legal choice. Many esteemed scientists predicted people would use it as a means of suicide. The study, focused on 10 populations, including those with disabilities, low socioeconomic status, HIV/AIDS, low education areas that they believed, would use euthanasia as an escape from life and their current situation. The predictions they made were wrong.


Scientists were astonished to see death rates lowered, and not raised since legalizing euthanasia. There were certain restrictions to qualify for physician assisted suicide, the law required ‘intolerable suffering,’ but not terminal illness. Only AIDS patient’s death rates escalated slightly. Even in the case of people diagnosed with AIDS, only six AIDS patients died with a physicians’ assistance, 2 percent of all deaths. People would only use this option if forced to, by pain or otherwise insufferable agony. Death is not something most people would choose, but unfortunately, it is a more dignified and respectful way of dying than slowly passing away because of a harrowing disease.







Even the roots of euthanasia had their best interests. Euthanasia itself is comprised of: eu (good) thanasia (death) from Greek antiquity. Mercy killings, as they were nicknamed during war, was a common practice on ancient battlefields for soldiers too injured for medical care, therefore sparing them pain. People should make their own choices regarding their lives. If they choose death instead of prolonged treatment or discomfort, it should be a simple legal procedure, not a complicated and criminal act. Certain medical standards should apply, like standards for disease qualification and pain, so that people still use such an alternative responsibly. Otherwise euthanasia is a solemn and gracious opportunity for sensible, dying individuals.