Stay Alive
May 29, 2008
Euthanasia – Should we really accept it?
This sounds like a General Paper Essay question, but seriously, after the visit to the Ling Hwang Home for the Aged, I have thought of this question before.
Not that I want to end people lives of course, but rather have sympathy on the people having bedridden and suffered for so many years, still alive because of the effects of medicine that they took everyday. My grandmother has always been telling me also, “I have lived enough. Why Heaven wouldn’t want to take me away? I have been a burden to my kids.” I always replied to my grandmother, “Don’t think too much. You are not a burden to us. If not, we would be also your burden in the past when we were kids, isn’t it?”
Still, suffering, loneliness and helpless are what some of the aged people were experiencing. If you want to give them a reason for them to have the will to survive, some I doubt you can give a convincing one. Specifically, those who do not have any kids, disabled and having multiple diseases, simply waiting in the old folks home or hospital, for the “passport to heaven” to be stamp-chopped.
It is really discouraging to see this category of people, and I saw them there. They were so pitiful. I wanted to help, but just felt helpless to them. Why can’t suffering be brought to an end without the hands of others? Euthanasia, sound so noble and easy to conduct, but I think it will take a lot of courage and future traumas to eventually get someone to do that.
Why can’t all people leave this world peacefully, without much suffering?