Alright I did my essay today (as quick as possible), and I'm not expecting to get any better than a C on this paper, but here it is if anyone's interested. I was chilling with friends and they helped me write it (kinda) and I wasn't really focusing on getting it done so I think it's spoon.

One

“Landmine has taken my sight, taken my speech, taken my hearing, taken my arms, taken my legs, taken my soul, left me with a life in hell,” says James Hetfield from the band Metallica. Their song, titled “One” is about a soldier who obviously came to some demise by stepping on a landmine. Having virtually no limbs, blind, deaf and mute, this man must surely be contemplating suicide, the act of when an individual who, with no help from anyone else, takes their own life and succeeds; someone who is a coward and is looking for an easy way out because they feel that they have nothing left to live for. A similar case involves a man named James, a burn victim who wishes to kill himself to escape his pain, although it may only seem minor compared to the man who unfortunately stepped on a landmine. Both victims wish to commit suicide, but who is to say they are rational, which is the state of mind where the thinker is fully aware of what he or she may be feeling or hearing or thinking, and they are not being distracted by any means to think or desire something that they truly do not feel. But do these two men, especially James, who is apparently coherent and rational, deserve to end their life? I believe they do, for it is their body, their mind, their soul, their life, and they should be able to do what they will with it.

Sure, James could eventually adapt and live his life out, he can find new things to do with his life, he can find happiness, but is it really worth all the pain he must endure to get there? Will he ever find a new reason to live, something to keep him going? Some people in similar cases find a way to fight and live on, and they use their disabilities to partake in new activities in their life. For some this is enough to find enjoyment in life, but for others it’s just not as simple. Eventually they will begin to yearn for the things they previously could take part in, and it would seem to them as if that were in some other life and they had been reborn as a cripple. So should James be able to kill himself, and should his psychiatrist be allowed to take action and involve herself in this man’s wish to die without any consequences? This is a prodigious concept, and extremely risky for the doctor who may feel it is their patient’s choice in the matter of their well-being, and it is up to them to risk being sued for assisted suicide and euthanasia, or, in other words, mercy killing.

Rationally contemplating suicide, to some, does not necessarily mean they are actually rational. To others it is entirely plausible. The problem is, some may not consider James’s situation to be “suicide,” but merely cowardice or hopelessness. Most people would try to see the glass half full and try to persuade James to fight for his right to live, to keep his life and find something new to do with it, but I say otherwise. If he wishes to die, so be it, let him go peacefully and prematurely end his pain. But again comes the psychiatrist, a constant obstacle of James’s when it comes to begging for death. No one has the right to say whether someone else shall live or die, not even a psychiatrist, and in this case it is the same. As long as the doctors believe that their patient is thinking rationally, the psychiatrist has an obligation to fill their patients' demands, and whether that is to live or to die, I believe they shall fulfill it. They cannot legally “kill” their patient first hand, but they should be allowed to let the patient go home to die in peace, as James so wishes.

If I were in James’s shoes, I would have done the same thing; to go home and die in peace. Without full control over my body, with only vision in one eye, without my fingers, I would never be able to find the strength to get up every morning and feel the burns on my skin tingle, the wrappings around my body seemingly burning as I struggle to face another day. I can only say that I hope James’s wish was fulfilled, and that he was able to find peace in death. I only hope that I can be so lucky one day.

Assassinator Wrote:

ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:Scanning very quickly over it, the style isn't quite an essay style, though it's somewhat does follow the structure to some degree.

If it's meant to be more formal discussion essay, you generally write objectively in the body of the essay; you can give your subjective opinion in the conclusion.

Yeah, that.

Also a bit short.

It's three pages long in Microsoft Word, double spaced at the teacher's demand. I think I'll at least get a passing grade on it.

beaner2k6 Wrote:he fudgeed it up, he shouldn't of said anything, just do it when he goes home, now you have to write a paper, of a very touchy topic, that most likely won't do anything to help/impede his cause, in other words its for a class.

unless he can find a new purpose that isn't sports etc, he should be allowed,

by the way a christian would tell him to become a speaker about burn vicitms and accidents, and would convince him that its good stuff that's happening-personally i think that's not cool telling him its good but its finding a new purpose :P

lol I already turned in the paper.