The Morality and Politics of Justice
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death
By Hunter Swenson
I once saw a t-shirt that stated, “The leading cause of death is life.” Death is inevitable. Thus, might as well spare those who have to take a longer and more arduous road to the same common end. Right?
Oregon, Washington and Massachusetts have passed laws that allow for physician assisted suicide (PAS) in ending the life of a person who has a terminal incurable disease. PAS is a touchy subject for most people and is intertwined with all types of controversy. The opponents to PAS clam is that it violates the Hippocratic oath which states “do no harm.” By euthanizing a person, a doctor is seen as doing harm. However, the doctor often can cause more harm by allowing the patient to suffer through life-preserving measures. Another reason why opponents below PAS is immoral is that it demeans to the value of human life. However, PAS allows for the patient to die in a higher state of being rather than in a state of frailty.
Picture this: loved ones surround you. Because of the pain killers you are on, you can hear them but only as though you were in a dream. The pain persists. You try to focus but your mind is a blur. This scenario is a mild form of what it is like to die of a terminal disease. Why do we not let a patient in such pain die? Helping a person end his suffering is one of the most substantial reasons why PAS is morally just. Additionally it helps lessen the pain felt by the family and friends of the patient. Dr. Goodwin, recently interviewed by Time and a man who helped pass PAS in Oregon and who was dying of a terminal illness, stated, “[W]e all have not gotten used to the idea yet, that we are all going to die”(Goodwin Peter, Time) This quote explains a vast part of the resistance to PAS. Most of us don’t want to die and the very idea of death scares and frightens us. When dealing with a dying person, I feel we don’t want to let him/her die because we are scared of death. PAS can help with the passing because family and friends have a chance to say a final goodbye. The last claim that makes PAS morally just is that it allows the patient to die on his or her own terms. I know that I don’t want to die-over medicated, frightened or in pain, and I don’t want to die pleading to God to come and take me away. I want to die with my family around me, with little pain and in a place where I am aware what is happening. Every person should have that option.
The US should make PAS legal. There should be laws in place so people do not abuse this power. But overall it should be an available option for people dying of a terminal illness. The more pressing problem that needs to be resolved,, is our violation of terminally-ill peoples’ rights to escape the pain of dying. Patrick Henry, one of our nation’s Founding Fathers, stated in his speach “Give me liberty or give me death”, “Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”Without liberty, Patrick Henry would have rather died. Ironically, people who want to be euthanized are not granted this same liberty.
Some people die peacefully in their sleep, others die contracted from Huntington's and terminal cancer. It is morally unjust to force patients to die in pain. If PAS were allowed, people with terminal illnesses would have the option to die on their own terms. The United States Constitution was formed to “[S]ecure the Blessings of Liberty.” If we all have liberty, then why do doctors not have the liberty to perform euthanasia? Is a life without liberty worth living?
MD Moral Interview
Artist Statement
Reflection
For this project we had to do many thing leading up to the project. First we learned about the moral theories that people possess. Then we learned about Kohlberg and his scale of moral development. After that we had to interview a person and analyze the interviewees responses and code that person on the Kohlberg scale also the moral theory. From there we study what lead to the America revolution and read a few chapters from Howard Zinns, “A Peoples History of The United States.” Then we where asked to pick a political issue that we found interesting and then write and Op-ed article where we express weather the issue was morally right or just.
During this project the main habit of hart and mind that I felt I used was perspective. This is because I find it hard for me to sometimes acknowledge both side of an argument. So for this project I had to accept that people will disagree with me and argued with me mainly based off religion. Also I had to use perspective for the person that is dyeing and whats PAS. Another habit of hart and mind that I used was refinement. I used refinement in my poster and op-ed article by constantly refining my poster and article till they where up to my stander.
I think in the rubric for the Op-ed article my strongest category was development because I put much thought into how each paragraph flows into the next. An example of this is in my second paragraph I talked about why people oppose PAS, then to district those argument I described a situation at the beginning of paragraph three to appeal to the emotion of people and the urge to help people. For the Poster however I feel my strongest section was the integration of my quote. I feel this is so because of the unique way that I put it in and then I put that a play on words to fully affect my poster. The section of the rubric, Op-ed article, that I feel was my weakest was rhetorical have an impact on. This is because I could not find a way to really to add emotion in to that article. This lack of affect of rhetoric I feel is present in my poster. I just do not know how to add emotion to inanimate objects. Score Op-ed: A, A, +B, A. Poster score: A, A, A, A.
I think over all I should get a 95% or A.
If I had another week then I would add a section into my Op-ed article stating that there is a grey area for people who have PAS like altimeters or Huntington's diseases. That is all because I was ahead in doing my work for this project and worked at home a lot to also finish the project. Along with that I made sure I got peer and teacher reviews along the way in why to improve my Op-ed article and poster.
Hunter Swenson
Korematsu v. United States (1944)
This project was revolved around the Japanese interments camps and the events that lead up to the interment of the Japanese. This project also looked at the events that happened during and after the interment of the Japanese and how those events effected the United States Constitution. Leading up to the final project, a mock trail, the students read the book Snow Falling on Cedars to get a better understanding of what it was like to be a person in the United States of Japanese origin. In the book Snow Falling on Cedars the author showed the racism that was inflicted on the Japanese population and the unfairness of the situation that they wear put in. Another activities that the students did in the preparation for the mock trial read a series of articles, a chapter from A Peoples History of the United States and a chapter from A Patriots history of United States to better understand what the Japanese were going through and what our government was doing during that time. Lastly students then read a series of government bills one executive order 9066 and the other exclusion order No. 34 to see the laws that made it possible for the Japanese internment camps to happen. From there the students were introduced into the case Korematsu vs. United States and were assign roles as either a prosecution lawyer defense lawyer a witness or a judge. Korematsu was a Japanese-American who disobeyed exclusion order No. 34 and was then sent to a internment camp where he then appealed his case to the Supreme Court saying that exclusion order No. 34 was unconstitutional; Korematsu did not win the case and the supreme Court ruled that exclusion order No. 34 was constitutional.
For this project I was assigned a judge. The preparation for being a judge it was more independent work rather than teamwork during this project. There where times during this project that the judges came together to discuss certain matters pretending to the trial or trial prep, but overall the judges were independent in the ruling and decision-making process and preparing for trial. This project was a valuable learning experience as a judge I got to see both sides of the case and make an independent ruling on the case without having to worry about team preferences only what is constitutional in the matter with the evidence provided by the two teams of lawyers.
The main writing section that the judges had to do was a case summary; in the summary the judges hi to look at the history of Korematsu the 5th and 14th amendments also habeas corpus and strict scrutiny. This was very valuable towards me because I do not know what any of these things were prior to this case and now I have a broader understanding of what it means to be a Supreme Court judge. Another piece of writing that the judges had to do was their case ruling; in mine I favor of the defendant Korematsu and deciding that it exclusion order No. 34 was not Constitution.
I feel that this project was very fun and beneficial; it really opened my eyes on what it means to be a judge and the moral dilemma that a companies being a judge. There’s a lot of reading in this project which I did enjoy because I get a brief glimpse at history of that time from a different perspective than what I learned about last year in loris class. Feedback on this project is that to help the judges I would suggest bringing a judge in or practicing objections with the judges so that the court case can run more smoothly. Besides that though the judges part of this project was straightforward and quite manageable while being informative and beneficial.
Case summary
Judge Ruling
Energy and Place Project
This project was about finding my sense of place in nature and where I feel home in the world. Journal assignments, were assigned to students to help them start thinking about nature and their own individual relationship to nature. To discover our sense of place and to discover our environmental ethic, we, the students read pieces of writing by Edward Abbey, did some workshops and watched movies about the environment. From there the students learned about nature writing and the art of writing in the grand style. In addition the students learned how to craft a simile and metaphor all of these types of writing where then put into the creation of the sense of place essay. To help students learn more about energy production three guest speakers were brought to class and talked about energy production and the impacts that it has to the environment and people.
I do not like talking about myself or the idea of self reflection. Thus this project was hard for me because it was all self reflection and assessment. To discover my environmental ethic I had to think, how have I and do I use nature and think about nature? Over the course of my life I have used nature as a source of entertainment and a sanctuary from my day to day life. I realized that I used nature for my own gain and did not feel strong emotions on using nature for energy production. However, I still do think nature needs protection so that I can continue to use it for my own benefit. Coming up with my sense of place was the easiest part of this project for me; when Ashley was talking about this project and how sense of place is where, “you feel home and complete,” Two places popped into my head Telluride and the ocean. Those two places are the places that I feel home I feel I belong when I am in one of those places.
I am proud of both my essay and visual art pieces. I am proud of my art piece because I feel I expressed my environmental ethic very cleverly and creatively (The bleeding scars on the mountains and the ground, the inspiring mountains). I am proud of my essay because I feel I did very well with my use of imagery. An example of imagery that I used in my essay is “the ocean is a powerful and constant moving force. It beats the sand into submission and wears down even the roughest of stones into a smooth flawless object...I love listening and watching the rolling, crashing, clashing and changing waves.” Part of rubric for this project was using imagery in your essay and use language that shows and does not tell the reader the scene that is being described. I feel I did this my quote from my essay shows that on how I could describe the ocean as powerful without imagery but I did not do that I told how the ocean is powerful.
This project combined two classes Chemistry and Humanities; I am very pleased with how the two classes complimented each other. Overall I did enjoy this project, again I do not like self reflecting, but I need to do it more and this project forced me to do it and I found it enjoyable in the end. I found that Chemistry and Humanities complemented each other very well, in Humanities we learned about the ethic of energy production while in Chemistry we learn about how energy is produced. This project was interesting and enjoyable.
Humanities