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The right to die peacefully

We don’t have the right or opportunity to choose to be born or not, but we should have the right to die if we want to end our lives, otherwise the birth is cursed because it becomes that we have to live in the world, no matter how miserable, painful, suffering, morbid, algetic, tormenting the life is. Everyone lives to pursue happiness no matter what the happiness means for him or her. This is the purpose of life. If the life becomes so despairing and torturing that there are no ways to pursue happiness in any sense, the only happiness is to end the life. If the desire is prohibited, rejected or objected, it is cruel, brutal, but not merciful. Everybody will die after all. Death is the same, but dying or the process of dying is completely different. What is important is not if a person dies but how he dies. In China, when we swear somebody, we say, “You won’t die peacefully”. In the human history all over the world, the most brutal punishments are not death itself but the ways of dying.
There are two Chinese stories illustrating the issue. One is an old Chinese movie “Red Sorghum”. In World War II, Japanese soldiers invaded into a Chinese village. Two men were captured as revolters. The villagers were gathered to watch the end of the revolters. Two villagers, whose job was butcher, were ordered by the soldiers to peel off the skin of the revolters alive as punishment. The scene was terrifying. Before the two villagers started their job, one of them suddenly stabbed his victim with his knife and he was also shot dead by the soldiers immediately. The other butcher was cowardly. He peeled his victim from the forehead as he did with a slaughtered cow. The horrible shriek of the victim incessantly lingered on. Everybody can tell in this story who was brave and merciful. Another story happened in Qing dynasty in China about 150 years ago. One of the leaders of the uprising, Shi Dakai and his sons, were arrested. They died of the most brutal punishment in ancient China-cut off the flesh alive piece by piece with thousands of cuts. But at that time, Shi’s youngest son was only one year old. If he died at that time, he wouldn’t experience the pain of the punishment enough. So according to Qing’s law, he should be raised to 18 years old to undergo the punishment. I don’t know the exact end of this poor man, but I can imagine his life. If I wanted to help him, I would kill him as soon as possible with a gun if he couldn’t be rescued. Should his life be prolonged as long as possible until the “natural” end at 18 years old?
If a person is doomed to die, no matter terminal illness or cruel punishment, any way he or she will die. The difference is the pain in the dying. Most people enjoy life. They don’t want to die. They want to live as long as possible if the life is not so suffering. Even the life becomes a little suffering but people still want to live because the natural instinctive will to live is so strong and the social moral also support people to fight with diseases and live on. Most people are afraid of death. But for very few people, in spite of how hard the doctors have worked and how the families support them, the pain is overwhelming and the situation is despairing, they want to die. Death is a relief for them from the endless misery. However, in our society, they are not allowed to die peacefully with dignity.
If a person decides to die, he can commit suicide. However, all peaceful suicide methods are kept unavailable in our society. If you want to die, you have to only choose brutal ways without dignity, such as jumping from highrise buildings, cutting your artery or throat, hanging yourself, or car accident. These suicide methods are also painful and the risk of unsuccess is high. I have seen many people who jumped from high building and disabled themselves but didn’t die, who hanged or cut themselves but didn't die. Do they have dignity after they committed unsuccessful suicide? They have to face the disgrace when they were rescued. The will to die is not respected in our society. To increase the chance of success, somebody may jump from highway bridges, but this is so dangerous for the underneath driving cars. So for many suffered terminally ill patients, they have no ways to go but doctors’ assistance for suicide. However, assisted suicide is not allowed by Canadian laws.
Suicide is to die. The duty of doctors is to cure. How can doctors be allowed assisting people to die? Is that licensed killing? This sounds controversial because it seems doctors have the right to decide people to die. In fact, originally, patients don’t need doctors’ assistance at all, but they are deprived of the right to get right medications. If they can get safe suicidal sleeping pills such as Seconal or Nembutal, they don’t need doctor at all. Doctors have no right but the patients have the right to decide their lives. Doctors have the right to help patients. If a doctor thinks dignified peaceful death is a reasonable choice for a terminal ill patient and want to help him or her, he should prescribe sleeping pills as formally requested by the patient if this is not prohibited by laws. Because the patient is special and the dosage of sleeping pills is lethal, he should also be required by laws to report to police to keep a record. In this way, doctors do not directly assist suicide and have the right to kill at all. They only prescribe sleeping pills as formally requested to help terminal ill patients. This is mercy. If the laws allow this kind of help, this is mercy.
For those who don’t wish to die, they should not feel that doctors are licensed to kill. Doctors will not prescribe the special sleeping pills if you don’t request at all. It will be criminal if a doctor prescribe the special sleeping pills but does not tell you the lethal effect. Doctors have no right to kill but to help as requested.
Natural is not always good. Illness is natural, cancer is natural, diabetes is natural, whereas medical intervene is artificially unnatural. Without medical intervention, many people would die much earlier. The process of dying is greatly artificially prolonged. Everyone lives for happiness. Medications are invented to make people live happily but not miserably. When the only happiness is to die peacefully with dignity, I don’t understand why this purpose of medications should be prohibited. No matter natural or unnatural, the quality of life is much more important than the quantity of life. God has given us the right to pursue happiness. We should not violate God’s good will.
Some people live very well, so they believe everybody lives well. They don’t want to die so they don’t want to see others to die. They don’t care how others are suffering. They are afraid that if people are allowed to die voluntarily legally, they will be left in the world lonely. They have so strong will to live, but they ignore others’ instinctive will to live. Nobody wants to die if they can live happily because death is irreversible and everybody fears death instinctively. Someone completely knows the suffering and meaningless life of terminal ill patients, but he doesn’t want to let people go so easily and peacefully. They are ruthless torturer. They let natural excruciation torture people.
We have the right to pursue happiness. When the only happiness is to die, we have the right to die and die peacefully with dignity. Not everyone needs assistance to die. What we want is the right to be legalized by laws, is the right to legally get adequate medications.