Infanticide and Assisted Suicide

Ending one's life can be an extremely difficult decision to make. Imagine someone needs assistance in taking their life, or better yet they cannot make the decision for themselves because they are either an infant with a select disability, or are in a vegetative state. How is someone suppose to make a decision of this magnitude, and live the rest of their life knowing they made it? John West and Harriet McBryde Johnson address the difficult issue of ending a human life in very different ways. West argues that when a person of sound mind has been confronted with a terminal illness, and feels that they have lived a full and happy life it is their right to decide to end their life. While Johnson argues that such a choice should never be made, because it is the cowardly way out of life.

West has a tough decision to deal with. Both his parents face terminal illnesses and ask him to assist in their suicide. It is not clear in the excerpt whether he helps them or not, but this is a very heavy burden to be confronted with. Jolly West's father believes in death with dignity. He holds himself to a very high standard it seems. Which is why he chooses to go through with this. He does not want people to see him in pain and suffering because so many people looked up to him. He expresses this when he says, “At some point,” he continued, “ not too long from now, I will decide that enough is enough. By that time I will be full of all sorts of drugs, particularly the morphine that I'm already taking for pain. A little extra of that should do the trick, without anyone having to know and get upset,” (West 34). Jolly feels that his life was lived to the fullest extent and that at this point he has nothing left to do on this earth but suffer, which does not appeal to him.

On the other hand Harriet Johnson sees this issue from the other side of the fence. She was born with disabilities, and since day one has had the odds stacked