One of the issues that have intrigued the human beings from time immemorial is death, that is, the cessation of life. Different societies across the globe throughout their histories have sought to understand what death is and as such, attempted to explore what is means. In some societies, death is perceived as a passage to another “life” while in others, it is a painful experience that people go through when their friends and loved one depart from this world. In the last few years, there has been a growing call for legalisation of physician assisted deaths as a way to ease pain for the terminally ill patients. This paper evaluates three articles on euthanasia in Canada and the United States. The paper intends to use the findings from the analysis of these articles to gain insights on the cultural perceptions of death in North America.
自古以来，人类一直感兴趣的问题之一就是死亡，即生命的停止。世界各地不同的社会在其历史中都试图理解死亡是什么，并试图探索死亡的含义。在一些社会中，死亡被视为通往另一个“生命”的通道，而在另一些社会中，当他们的朋友和爱人离开这个世界时，死亡是一种痛苦的经历。在过去几年中，越来越多的人呼吁将医生协助的死亡合法化，以此来减轻临终病人的痛苦。本文评估了加拿大和美国关于安乐死的三篇文章。本文打算利用这些文章的分析结果来了解北美对死亡的文化认知。
To begin with, an article Catherine Porter that was published in the New York Times in May 2017 explores the issues of euthanasia from both the patient and the doctor’s perspective. In this regard, this article follows the journey of 78-year-old Canadian, John Shields, who was suffering from an incurable disease called amyloidosis, which caused severe pain in his arms and legs, and his doctor, Stefanie Green, who administered the lethal injection to him (Porter, 2017). One of the critical issues that emerge from this article concerning the death is the perception that the Canadian culture promotes the need for one to die an honourable death rather than suffer in pain. In this case, the article creates a perception that from a Canadian culture, one was dignified when he or she chose to end his or her life through euthanasia rather than wait to be crippled or disabled by the terminal disease. For example, when it became that Mr Shields will not be able to perform basic functions such as eating and relieving himself, he thought that he will be dignified if he ended his own life, thus lessening the suffering that his wife and step-daughter would have to endure because of his sickness. This was further perceived as a triumph over death and a control over one’s body. Therefore, rather than become sad because of the near end of their life on earth, patients who requested for euthanasia celebrated their end on earth in different ways. For example, in Mr Shield’s case, he threw a party for his himself, thus affirming his victory over death.
首先，2017年5月在《纽约时报》上发表的一篇文章凯瑟琳·波特从患者和医生的角度探讨了安乐死问题。在这方面，本文讲述了78岁的加拿大人约翰·希尔兹（John Shields）和他的医生史蒂芬妮·格林（Stefanie Green）的经历。约翰·希尔兹患有一种称为淀粉样变性（淀粉样变性）的不治之症，导致手臂和腿部剧痛。史蒂芬妮·格林给他注射了致命针剂（波特，2017年）。这篇关于死亡的文章中出现的一个关键问题是，加拿大文化促使人们需要体面地死去，而不是痛苦地死去。在这种情况下，这篇文章创造了一种观念，即在加拿大文化中，当一个人选择通过安乐死结束自己的生命，而不是等待因晚期疾病致残或致残时，他或她是有尊严的。例如，当希尔兹先生无法履行吃饭和解闷等基本职能时，他认为如果他结束自己的生命，他会有尊严，从而减轻妻子和继女因疾病而不得不忍受的痛苦。这进一步被认为是对死亡的胜利和对身体的控制。因此，要求安乐死的患者并没有因为他们在地球上的生命即将结束而感到悲伤，而是以不同的方式庆祝他们在地球上的结束。例如，在Shield先生的案件中，他为自己开了一个派对，从而肯定了他战胜死亡的胜利。
Despite Porter (2017) indicating in her article that patients with terminally ill diseases were willing to request for assisted dying, a section of North American society has been opposed to legalisation of euthanasia in this country. In his article that appeared in the Washington Post on April 10, 2018, Fenit Nirappil observes that despite the legalisation of euthanasia in the District of Columbia, the number of patients who had requested for assisted dying was still low. In this regard, unlike their Canadian counterparts, most Americans, both patients and doctors, were unwilling to take part in this process (Nirappil 2018). Speaking from this point of view, this article indicates that in the United States, death was perceived as something that was unwelcome, and as such, it was only prudent for someone to die when their time came rather than be assisted to die. Therefore, whereas from a Canadian perspective, triumphing over death was achieved by choosing the time to die, from the American cultural perspective, choosing to live was the only way to triumph over death. For example, within the first six months after legalising euthanasia, there were 80 people who chose medical deaths in Vancouver (Porter, 2017), while in the United States, a year had passed after legalising euthanasia without a single request for medical death in the District of Columbia (Nirappil, 2018). This is irrespective of fact that the Vancouver and District of Columbia have almost the same population.
尽管Porter（2017）在她的文章中指出，患有绝症的患者愿意请求协助死亡，但北美社会的一部分人一直反对安乐死在该国合法化。Fenit Nirappil在2018年4月10日发表在《华盛顿邮报》上的文章中指出，尽管哥伦比亚特区安乐死合法化，但请求协助死亡的患者数量仍然很低。在这方面，与加拿大同行不同，大多数美国人，包括患者和医生，都不愿意参与这一过程（Nirappil 2018）。从这个角度讲，这篇文章指出，在美国，死亡被认为是不受欢迎的事情，因此，一个人只有在时机成熟时死亡才是明智的，而不是被人协助死亡。因此，从加拿大人的角度来看，战胜死亡是通过选择死亡时间来实现的，而从美国文化的角度来看，选择活着是战胜死亡的途径。例如，在安乐死合法化后的前六个月内，温哥华有80人选择了医疗死亡（Porter，2017），而在美国，哥伦比亚特区安乐死合法化后一年过去了，没有任何医疗死亡申请（Nirappil，2018）。这与温哥华和哥伦比亚特区的人口几乎相同这一事实无关。