ne way of ending life in the event of a terminal illness or debilitating and incurable injury. The legalization of active euthanasia would also end the physical and emotional suffering not only of the patient but also of the immediate family members. Furthermore, such a move would help cut the nation's soaring health costs by eliminating expensive extended--and ultimately fruitless--hospital care. More and more Americans today are seeking the right to terminate life when it is no longer livable, as is seen in the success of books like Final Exit, which offers a rationale for active euthanasia and suicide:
It is against the law everywhere to assist a suicide--no matter what the reason. . . Yet hundreds of people in America still do help their loved ones to die every year (Humphry, Final Exit 30).
As noted, medical science today can prolong life but may not be able to restore full functioning to the sufferer, in which case the human suffering involved is also being prolonged:
When technology becomes an end in itself, unduly prolonging the dying process, it creates a paradox in which human dignity may be undermined and where the goals of treatment are distorted to accommodate the imperatives of technology. . . Decisions that subordinate the humane dying of a terminally ill man or woman to the technological imperative, or personal or institutional self interest legal, financial, professional are not consistent with Christian values and traditions (Tong 27).
The purpose of medical science is to alleviate human suffering, not to prolong it, and the stricture against active euthanasia contributes to the continuation of suffering in many cases. Tong finds that the idea of active euthanasia, while distasteful to many and while being something most Americans state they would not choose, is also something most Americans today feel should be a matter of personal choice and should be judged on an individual basis:
The f...