Choosing to R.I.P.

  

         In case you’re not aware, Belgium is getting ready to legalize physician – assisted suicide for children. In an article from the New York Times, Belgium senator Philippe Mahoux was reported to have said “This [the legalization attempt] is an act of humanity that allows the doctor to make the most humane course of action for his patient…What is scandalous is the suffering of sick children when they are going to die.”

I’m sure that many people (especially in the U.S., where only a few states have legalized physician-assisted suicide) think that this opinion is absurd and are appalled that a law legalizing the assisted suicide of children has been passed. However, I agree with Mahoux. I think that terminally ill kids (and their families) should have the right to decide how they want to die.

            I understand why some terminally ill children, with no hope of cure, would want access to physician-assisted suicide. They want the suffering to end quickly and with as little pain as possible. I would choose this ending as well. I would want my family and friends to remember me in a positive light, and not as a sick person. I would want to “die with dignity”, as Belgium lawmaker Karine Lalieux said in the article. And who should be able to tell me that I cannot choose this ending? Nobody.

What opponents to physician- assisted suicide do not understand is that this bill only applies to children without a chance for a happy ending. Either way, these kids are going to die, and I think that it is disrespectful and degrading to them to not to let them choose the way they want to die. Letting them decide their fate is the only acceptable and humane way to handle this.  The loss of a child is heart wrenching, but worse would be forcing the child to endure pointless suffering while waiting for the end.

I understand that we can’t have people who are mentally unstable requesting to die, but with the proper oversight, physician-supervised suicide is an appropriate treatment at the end of life. Certainly waiting periods, review panels, and appropriate oversight by trained professionals is a necessity to prevent abuse of such a system.

            In the U.S., not only are children limited in end of life options, but adults are also unable to choose physician-assisted suicide. Personally, I think that this is just ridiculous. We have so many wonderful freedoms in America, why not the right to die? Even our animals are treated better than this! When they are sick and are suffering, we have the humanity to put them out of their misery, but when a fellow human being is suffering, we do not even give them the choice of ending their pain.