Overview
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ASSIGNMENT: Please respond to the classmate’s discussion post that pertains to the questions below:
Moving forward, how will you apply what you have learned in this course? Are there things you can apply to your personal life? Professional life? Future courses? What topics were most interesting to you?
Olivia Madison’s Discussion Post:
As we all understand, in the United States culture, it is often taboo to talk about death in real-life contexts. This in itself is interesting because we live in a society where death and violence are promoted in our media (think movies, video games, music, etc.) However, when it comes to real-life circumstances, Americans tend to do everything in their power to avoid talking about or thinking about aging and dying (e.g. cosmetic procedures/ efforts to visually mitigate the physical evidence of aging.) Even I personally do not like to think about death but it is a very real and inevitable phenomenon that is important to talk about.
In this class, I learned many things about death in society and it was also a helpful tool in getting used to talking about this difficult subject. The major topics that stood out to me were advance directives/ living wills, and the right to die/ assisted suicide.
I learned that advance directives are an important part of a health care plan that serves as direct instructions from a patient of what to do if they fall incoherent or unable to speak/care for themselves. I learned that having these in place make it easier for grieving families to follow the wishes of the person who is gravely sick or dying and takes away some of the stress associated with difficult decision-making in trying times. In my own life, I will likely talk to my loved ones about each of us having some sort of living will so that in the tragic case any of us falls mortally unwell, the rest of us can properly follow their wishes to the best of our abilities.
The other topic that stood out to me was assisted suicide and the right to die. There are many ethical issues when discussing this topic, and the materials provided in this class were enlightening. We watched a video that included 2 women, (one was terminally ill and the other was healthy but simply did not wish to live anymore). These two cases are very different which is where some ethical issues arise.
The one woman had a degenerative disease that would eventually place her in a vegetative state, unable to walk, speak or care for herself so she planned to opt for assisted suicide as soon as she began to lose her abilities of independence. I think that in this case, it should be considered and option to allow people the right to not die slowly and miserably but rather be granted autonomy in choosing how far they are willing to let their illness incapacitate them.(Though it could be difficult to find a doctor that is ethically okay with applying this.)
In the case of the woman who is completely, physically healthy, is where more grey area is introduced. Assisted suicide is a very personal decision. Mental health can be very extreme. If suicide is readily and legally available, this may increase suicide rates among those who struggle with mental illness. However, I’m still unsure whether assisted suicide should be an option for those who are mentally ill, but not physically ill. If it were available, the assessment should be extremely long and psychological screening should probably be drawn out to ensure that the person’s feelings persist.
With these topics, I gained some very interesting and important insights into ideas that aren’t often explored.