Should Mercy Killing Be Allowed?

The book “topics for today” by Smith, L.C & Mare, N.N (2004) is a reliable material for English learners in general and third year students in ULIS-VNU in particular. All its four units with some interesting topics including the society, nature versus nurture, medical advance as well as the environment fascinated me a lot. However, I make the third unit my best choice for my reading reflection because it discusses technology and ethical issues raises, which have been recently concerned most among people.

The unit consists of three chapters entitled “Assisted suicide: Multiple perspectives”, “Sales of Kidneys prompt new laws and debate”, “The gift of life: When one body can save another”. However, there are only two main issues being addressed in the unit namely assisted suicide and donating human organs.

First and foremost, the matters of whether to allow doctors to offer their patients a death certificate or not are fully discussed in the initial chapter. From Dr Francis Moore’s point of view, assisting people to leave their lives is a really difficult task to most doctors. He used to have a dilemma with this practice on two patients. The first is a woman who had been seriously damaged by an automobile accident. With the experience from the former work as a nurse, she knew that there was no hope left for her situation, and so offered Dr Moore to give her a quiet death. However, in this case, the doctor did not satisfy her expectation. In contrast, he decided to keep her alive and it was a right decision. The second patient was an 85 year old lady who had a deep burn while she was smoking. Unlike the first situation, the doctor decided to offer her an assisted killing this time so that she could avoid terrible physical pains. From real-life experience of Doctor Moore, we learn that giving one person a mercy killing requires strong judgment and long experiences from doctors. Any minor mistake in this practice can lead to adverse consequences which possibly take away people’s lives.

Due to its complexity, mercy killing has raised a lot of disputation so far. Two main schools of thought have been addressed in the second reading text named “ Should doctors be allowed to help terminally III Patients commit suicide?” by Humphry, D and Callahan, D. Those supporting the practice claim that doctors are not super-healers who can treat every disease. Hence, death should be considered as a part of medicine, which helps patients out of unbearable pains and leaves them a quiet sleep. The second justification is that patients need a help from doctors because it is rather difficult for them to take the death by their own. Opponents of this idea, who say no to mercy killing, believe that allowing doctors to help ill person commit suicide would be against the tradition of medicine and spoil the image of physicians. Moreover, legalizing it can raise great concern of increasing number in people taking assisted suicide to weigh off their relative’s burden.

Considering the two schools of thought, I am partly in favor of the former one. Writing death certificate should be allowed to doctors. However, as being suggested by Dr Moore in the first reading text, this action should be practiced only on patients who are irreversible, terminal and hopeless ill and judged carefully by many doctors.

Beside controversies of mercy killing, the advanced technology brings new laws and debate surrounding trading human organs. The two next chapters in the unit discuss this issue. At one end of the spectrum are those who support the sale of organs for transplanting. They hold one opinion that human organ market offers terminally ill patients great chances for transplants without which they would endure terrible mental suffering or painful deaths. Another justification is selling organs especially kidneys benefits both sides of sellers and buyers. Moreover, it is estimated that paying for transplantable cadaver kidneys is 5 to 6 times cheaper than its cost for artificial kidney machine to keep one alive annually. At the other end of the spectrum are people against the black market for organs for some reasons. Initially, they find it criminal offense to give or receive money for supplying organs of either a living or dead person. Secondly, it is not completely safe for the donor as being indicated by Dr. Thomas Starzl in chapter 9. These popular believes result in some laws and policies which prohibit tracking in human organs in some countries like Britain, America, Canada and most of Western European countries. Especially in Belgium, there used to have a program which make organ donation automatic upon death. However, it seemed less effect due to moral issues.

It is the birth of written document against the sale of human organs and the execution of seat belt as well as motorcycle helmet laws that cause serious lack of viscera for medical transplant. As a result, people try to find out other ways to save their relatives’ lives, which raises two new issues of making a new baby for certain purpose and taking advantage of living relatives who might serve as donors ( like the case of Ayalas’s family and The Plums’ in chapter 9).

Together with non-stop controversies about mercy killing and donating human organs is increasing debates of “ultrasound technology” and “assisted reproductive technologies”, which are mentioned in Barbara Barnet’s newspaper retrieved from the website http://www.fhi.org/en/rh/pubs/network/v21_2/nwvol21-2techandethics.htm. For many years, ultrasound technology has been widely used to screen the fetus for the diagnosis of genetic disorders. However, debates become intense when many studies have recently revealed that people are applying this technology with wrong purpose. They use its possibility of identifying the sex of a fetus and then abort unwanted fetuses which are mainly female. Many policies have been made so far to ban abortion of healthy female fetuses identified during genetic prenatal testing. Beside ultrasound technology, many other emerging technologies which raise heated arguments about ethical issues are “vitro fertilization”, “cloning” and “sex selection kits”.

It seems that debates surrounding technologies and ethical issues are nonstop. However, in my opinion, every medical advance is made for the sake of human being. Whether it is good or not depends on the way people apply it. Hence, what we should do now is to raise people’s awareness about the appropriate technological use.

In conclusion, the newspaper of Barbara Barnet and all the reading texts in unit 3 are sources of useful information for me. Actually, I had read them at one sitting because the issues they addressed were very interesting and updated to the remarkably rapid development of technology. Besides, the texts provide me with a lot of technical and medical terms like “ultrasound”, “family line”, “assisted reproductive technologies” (ART), “blood count”, “assisted killing” and “artificial kidney machine”. Many nice expressions are also learned from reading all aforementioned materials such as “bring the problem into focus”, “in retrospect”, “take the word back”, “give life to”, “on the verge of death” and “become the focus point of recent debates on st”.

From my point of view, the activity of reading reflection is absolutely essential for third year students because it not only helps to promote the capacity to read long materials for advanced English learners but also considerably contributes to enhance their writing and critical thinking skills. This activity should be continued for the next semesters, indeed! II. APPENDICES:

1. Unit 3: Technology and ethical issues in the book “Topics for Today” by Lorraine C. Smith & Nancy Nici Mare. ( page 146-203)

2. Reading text “Technology raises ethical concerns” by Barbara Barnet retrieved from the website

3. http://www.fhi.org/en/rh/pubs/network/v21_2/nwvol21-2techandethics.htm

TECHNOLOGY RAISES ETHICAL CONCERNS

Network: 2002, Vol. 21, No. 2
Sex selection
Throughout the world, ultrasound technology has been used to produce images of the fetus in the womb, aiding in the diagnosis of genetic disorders. Ultra-sound scans also can reveal the sex of a fetus, and some couples have used this information to abort unwanted female fetuses.
Abortion is a controversial procedure even in countries where it is safe, legal, and widely available. When abortion is used for sex selection, the controversy intensifies. Several studies have shown that induced abortion has been used for this purpose.
FHI's Women's Studies Project found that in China, where government policy limits urban couples to one child and rural couples to two children, preference for sons remains strong. A survey of residents in six counties in north Anhui, south Jiangsu, and central Yunnan provinces found that some couples said daughters were good, but sons were better. "Without sons your husband will dislike you, and you will have low status," one 25-year-old woman said. An older woman said, "My mother-in-law said it is inferior to have daughters. If you have a son, even your house will look higher."
In China, many pregnant women use ultrasound to determine the sex of their fetus. Using ultrasound for sex selection is illegal, but study participants in the FHI study acknowledged it does occur. "People use an ultrasound machine," one woman explained. "If it is a female fetus, they don't want it. . . . No matter how much money they have to spend, they think it is worth it [to determine fetal sex]."1
A Population Council study found similar results. Researchers interviewed 820 women in central China and found that nearly half of the pregnancies were subjected to an ultrasound scan for sex selection. About a third of 301 induced abortions were done to abort a female fetus.
In the same study, researchers learned that couples were most likely to abort a pregnancy when the previous children were girls and the current fetus was female. If the first child was a girl, 92 percent of the second pregnancies were aborted if the fetus was female. If the first child was a boy, 5 percent of second pregnancies were aborted if the fetus was female. However, when women were questioned about sex-selective abortions, 92 percent said they did not believe it was right to abort female fetuses. Many explained that they had an abortion because they felt pressured by family members; others said it was their duty to have a son who would carry on the family line. "I must have one son, no matter how many measures are taken," a woman said.
In analyzing study results, researchers urged stricter enforcement of laws and policies against sex selection. "More strenuous enforcement of the regulations forbidding prenatal sex determination and sex-selective abortion, and close monitoring of the uses of ultrasound" at hospitals and family planning stations might change the situation, said study author Chu Junhong.2
Some organizations and governments have taken steps to discourage sex-selective abortions. The government of India banned abortion of healthy female fetuses identified during genetic prenatal testing.3 A national convention of religious leaders recently condemned sex selection. However, the practice continues, and census figures show that the male-to-female ratio has dropped to 1,000:793 in the state of Punjab and 1,000:820 in Haryana.
In Vietnam, where the government has implemented a two-child limit, son preference is strong, especially in rural areas. Couples who have more than two children risk steep fines and low priority for land allocation. While sex-selective abortion has not been widely documented, son preference apparently affects women's contraceptive use. An analysis of data from the Kien Xuong district found that women with one or two daughters reported higher rates of intrauterine device (IUD) expulsion than did women with at least one son. After the third year of IUD use, one-third of women with two daughters reported IUD expulsion, compared with 21 percent of women with two sons or a son and a daughter. Researchers suggested that women may have removed their own IUDs and reported it as an expulsion, hoping they would become pregnant and have a son.
Other emerging technologies
In industrialized nations, "assisted reproductive technologies" (ART) involve the use of expensive equipment and tests to help infertile couples conceive a child. One of the technologies is in vitro fertilization, in which egg and sperm cells are united outside the body, then fertilized eggs are implanted in a woman's uterus. While the technique has helped many couples give birth to healthy children, it also has raised serious questions. Should such technologies be available only to married couples or to single women as well? Should fertile women and men be allowed to donate eggs and sperm so that infertile couples can have children? Should these donors be paid? Once an egg is fertilized, is the resulting group of cells a potential person, or a person with the same rights as any other?
The question of an embryo's status has become the focal point of recent debates on the ethics of stem-cell research. Stem cells – the body's "master" cells that can produce millions of genetically identical cells and transform themselves into any type of cell in the body – might be used to regenerate damaged tissue or organs, or to find new cures for a variety of illnesses and diseases. Stem cells can be taken from adults, but scientists have said that cells from embryos are more useful and versatile.
While some critics have suggested that taking cells from embryos would be the equivalent of destroying a human life, some scientists have argued that the cells would be taken from surplus embryos created in laboratories for infertile couples wanting children. Because more embryos are created than are actually implanted, researchers say they could use cells from embryos to improve treatment or cures for Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, or other debilitating ailments.
In addition to affecting how quickly new cures or cheaper health treatments might be developed, the outcome of the stem-cell debate in the United States could affect developing countries in other ways. For example, if embryonic stem-cell research were banned in the United States, research might be done instead in other countries, perhaps in the developing world.
Another controversy in assisted reproductive technologies is "selective reduction." Because several embryos are implanted to increase the couples' chance of having a baby, multiple births can occur. Some couples have chosen selective reduction instead – the destruction of a certain number of embryos by injection of potassium during the first trimester of pregnancy.
In the future, scientists predict they will be able to screen human embryos for chromosomal abnormalities and genetic diseases prior to implantation. They also expect to be able to alter genetic material. While some scientists suggest this could prevent diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and schizophrenia, others say the procedure could be misused by parents seeking children with specific features, such as eye and hair color or higher intelligence.10
A new technique developed at the Genetics and IVF Institute in the United States may be able to guarantee a child's sex. The technique involves isolating sperm that will produce a female embryo (the sperm that carry an X chromosome). Currently being evaluated in clinical trials, the technique has the advantage of allowing couples to determine the sex of their child before the egg is fertilized, not after, and could potentially be used to prevent genetic disorders such as hemophilia or muscular dystrophy. These conditions are caused by defects in the X chromosome and primarily affect male children. Other scientists have speculated that the new technique could become a tool for sex selection. "Ultimately we have to wonder whether [you will] ever have sex selection kits available at your chemist," says Ian Craft, a professor at the London Fertility Clinic in the United Kingdom.11
Cloning has been used to produce human cell tissues and to split embryos in animals, allowing scientists to make identical genetic matches of sheep, cows, pigs, goats, and mice. Some researchers have been concerned that the process will be done in humans, allowing people to predetermine characteristics of the new cloned individual. For example, a family might request an individual be cloned to produce an organ donor. Other researchers have suggested cloning might be an option for infertile couples trying to have a child.
Source : Barnett, B. (2002). Technology raises ethical concerns. Retrieved from the website: http://www.fhi.org/en/rh/pubs/network/v21_2/nwvol21-2techandethics.htm

-----The end-----