The Quality of Mercy Killing by Roger Rosenblatt and A Crime of Compassion: Article Review
A Crime of Compassion & The Quality of Mercy Killing
Barbara Huttmann & Roger Rosenblatt
15/3/14
“The quality of mercy killing by Roger Rosenblatt” and “A crime of compassion by Barbara Huttmann” are well written. However, I feel Rosenblatt’s quality of mercy killing has a better purpose and is a stronger argument and more effective than Huttmann’s Crime of Compassion. In the quality of mercy killing, Rosenblatt makes a powerful case for passion and understanding in such tragic cases, while at the same time he acknowledges the wrenching moral dilemmas they pose, and he does so using strong facts and opinions to get his point across. He is trying to get across to his audience that mercy killing isn’t a good thing. It is murder. He says “you cannot have a murder every time someone feels sorry for a loved one in pain”. Killings would increase with the excuse of “I couldn’t watch him/her suffer any longer”. Yes, Huttmann’s story is written in first person which means she’s been through it; she was there; but her purpose is to get her audience to feel pity for her. As a nurse it is her job to prolong someone’s life as long as she can and support them, but she feels mercy killing should be allowed if someone is suffering and in pain. A writers tone affects not only the purpose, but the whole impact. It is not as effective to write an argument in a biased and emotional manner. As an author, in order to portray their purpose to an audience, they should support their argument with evidence and show equal understanding of the opposing views. In Huttmann’s account, the nurse was melodramatic. She writes a very detailed and descriptive essay about everything she went through with her patient, Mac. “Clean the faeces that burned his skin like lye, pour the liquid food down the tube attached to his stomach, put pillows between his knees to ease the bone-on-bone pain”, she wrote. She goes on to say what she personally went through, “at night I went
Barbara Huttmann & Roger Rosenblatt
15/3/14
“The quality of mercy killing by Roger Rosenblatt” and “A crime of compassion by Barbara Huttmann” are well written. However, I feel Rosenblatt’s quality of mercy killing has a better purpose and is a stronger argument and more effective than Huttmann’s Crime of Compassion. In the quality of mercy killing, Rosenblatt makes a powerful case for passion and understanding in such tragic cases, while at the same time he acknowledges the wrenching moral dilemmas they pose, and he does so using strong facts and opinions to get his point across. He is trying to get across to his audience that mercy killing isn’t a good thing. It is murder. He says “you cannot have a murder every time someone feels sorry for a loved one in pain”. Killings would increase with the excuse of “I couldn’t watch him/her suffer any longer”. Yes, Huttmann’s story is written in first person which means she’s been through it; she was there; but her purpose is to get her audience to feel pity for her. As a nurse it is her job to prolong someone’s life as long as she can and support them, but she feels mercy killing should be allowed if someone is suffering and in pain. A writers tone affects not only the purpose, but the whole impact. It is not as effective to write an argument in a biased and emotional manner. As an author, in order to portray their purpose to an audience, they should support their argument with evidence and show equal understanding of the opposing views. In Huttmann’s account, the nurse was melodramatic. She writes a very detailed and descriptive essay about everything she went through with her patient, Mac. “Clean the faeces that burned his skin like lye, pour the liquid food down the tube attached to his stomach, put pillows between his knees to ease the bone-on-bone pain”, she wrote. She goes on to say what she personally went through, “at night I went