Jack Kevorkian is a man that I've never heard of before, but stumbled across and happened to find a very interesting story. Just a little background information: Kevorkian was an American pathologist who ultimately tried to convince the government that euthanasia on humans was a humane way to treat "suffering" patients. He treated terminally ill people, but also defined "suffering" as someone who wasn't sick, but desired assisted suicide. In 1999, Kevorkian was convicted of second degree murder in a case of voluntary euthanasia, and served eight years in prison. Kevorkian assisted in the deaths of 130 people between 1990 and 1998. The story is much more complicated, but this is a basic summary of what occurred.
Something that Kevorkian suggested to prisons (that is more along the lines of something I would agree with) is that the organs of inmates who were scheduled to receive the death penalty be donated to patients awaiting transplants. Prison officials, however, refused this suggestion. He also experimented with transfusing the blood of recently deceased people into healthy people, which was successful. He suggested to The Pentagon that this technique be used for wounded soldiers, but they refused his opinions as well.
This is a pretty sensitive topic I think, and I'm not quite sure if I agree with Kevorkian or not. Should euthanasia be a legal option for terminal patients? I think it could possibly, to an extent. In my opinion, Kevorkian took the idea too far by euthanizing people who were simply depressed or did not have an illness at all. However, this idea might be feasible for (example) people who are in the final stages of cancer or patients who are in a substantial amount of pain.
I believe that, as with any law, this type of thing would need to be strictly monitored and have many, many bullet points as to who, why and how this should be conducted specifically. However, like many regulations, I think it could easily be taken out of hand; the ruling manipulated to fit different cases, such as what happened with Kevorkian. It's a pretty fragile issue and may be ahead of our times.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Blog 6: Criticism
For this task I have chosen to critique a blog entry entitled "Pursuit of Happiness?" written by Josh Kim. I think that his topic for Blog Stage Five was very interesting and there are a few parts that I agree and disagree with, so I would like to discuss them.
First of all, I completely agree with his overall idea that men involved in politics should not have the right to make choices concerning women's bodily rights, such as abortion. The picture used in his article is also pretty cool because it states that 77% of anti-abortion leaders are men, which is an interesting and eye-opening statistic. I also agree with his statement that abortion should, in fact, be a legal option to those that may need it.
The only thing I disagree with in this article is the opinion of the author when the he goes into statistics about the low likely hood of a pregnant young woman finishing her education. (I'm concluding that Josh is for abortion in young women still in high school, college, etc.) Of course it would be an extremely difficult thing for a teenager to try and raise a child while attending school and as unfortunate as these statistics are, I don't think it's right for people to just desire an abortion as soon as they become pregnant. I think that abortions should be legal for people who truly need them, for example rape victims. I don't think that just anyone who chooses to make the irresponsible decision of having unprotected sex should be able to receive an abortion and simply carry on with their life. Though it may be difficult and an immense amount of work, it is possible for a young woman to finish her education and be successful after having a child at a young age, if she so desires.
Other than that minor opinion, I completely agree with Josh on everything else he argues for in his article; it's a really well thought out, well written and informative piece with lots of interesting evidence. : )
First of all, I completely agree with his overall idea that men involved in politics should not have the right to make choices concerning women's bodily rights, such as abortion. The picture used in his article is also pretty cool because it states that 77% of anti-abortion leaders are men, which is an interesting and eye-opening statistic. I also agree with his statement that abortion should, in fact, be a legal option to those that may need it.
The only thing I disagree with in this article is the opinion of the author when the he goes into statistics about the low likely hood of a pregnant young woman finishing her education. (I'm concluding that Josh is for abortion in young women still in high school, college, etc.) Of course it would be an extremely difficult thing for a teenager to try and raise a child while attending school and as unfortunate as these statistics are, I don't think it's right for people to just desire an abortion as soon as they become pregnant. I think that abortions should be legal for people who truly need them, for example rape victims. I don't think that just anyone who chooses to make the irresponsible decision of having unprotected sex should be able to receive an abortion and simply carry on with their life. Though it may be difficult and an immense amount of work, it is possible for a young woman to finish her education and be successful after having a child at a young age, if she so desires.
Other than that minor opinion, I completely agree with Josh on everything else he argues for in his article; it's a really well thought out, well written and informative piece with lots of interesting evidence. : )
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)