What do you think about euthanasia? For broken legged horses? Old, sick dogs and cats? Wounded birds?
What about people? I’ve been thinking about this for months as I’ve been researching my new short story, “To Be, Or Not.”
The moral dilemma of how to help people who are dying is a very old one. We have recorded stories about euthanasia dating back to Greek times. Take for example, Hercules, the half-son of god, Zeus and the beautiful mortal, Alcmen.
I share the Hercules story below. How do you feel about Hercules? What do you think of his son? Did his son do the right thing?
Zeus gave Hercules superhuman strength to be able to conquer challenges.
That superpower also made Hercules a hard to manage child. Added to that, his stepmother, Hera, made him insane and gave him an enormous temper. His temper was the ruin of him when he slaughtered his family.
He was punished by having to endure superhuman feats, but Apollo promised Hercules if he completed 12 nearly impossible Labors, (like strangling a lion, traveling to hell and back, killing a multi-headed hydra monster) Zeus would make him a god and he would never go to Hades, the underworld.
The process of his death was horrific.
He was tricked into wrapping himself in a beautiful cloak pre-soaked with a powerful poison that burned the flesh. As Hercules flung the cloak around him, he shrieked in agony, and immediately threw off the cloak—taking off all his flesh and skinning him alive.
To his son, he demanded, “Help me die!”
“No, I will not be your murderer.”
“I ask you to be my healer, the only physician who can cure my suffering.
Hercules then ordered his funeral pyre built and threw himself into the raging flames to end his torture.
To burn alive was better than to prolong his suffering.
What do you think? When is it okay to help people end their suffering?
