Host: Thank you, contestant No. 5. Euthanasia is a way of relieving ill people’s pain and saving them from the tortures of their illness. Do we have the right to take people’s lives for this reason? Or should the right to die be considered a ‘right’ for terminally ill patients?
Chen Xing:Thank you very much for the question. “When I am dead, my dearest, sing no sad songs for me. Plant thou no roses at my head, no shady cypress tree. Be the green grass above me with showers and dewdrops wet. And, if thou wilt, remember. And, if thou wilt, forget. For many, death is not frightening. For many, death is beautiful. For many, suffering from incurable deadly diseases, death is a longing. But no matter what they think, we can’t make the decision for them. Death is their own business. Whether for good intention or bad, if we decide to take another person’s life, it’s murder. We take it for granted that people suffering from long terminal diseases, want to die. Perhaps it might be so in some cases but how are we to tell? We can’t make the decision for others. Many old people, suffering from Alzheimer’s, seem to be living a most pitiable life to us. They no longer even recognize the beloved ones around them. But perhaps they’re enjoying their life, because they are now cut off from worldly affairs and problems. They are kind of reliving their childhood. They are, perhaps, enjoying it. We can’t terminate their life. Some people, suffering from cancer, seem to be living most painful life to us, what with all these torturing treatments and the prospect of death in front of them. But, perhaps, deep down in their heart, they want to go on, they want to live, they want to fight, they want to feel every bit of sunshine on earth, and hear the patter of rain in spring. Some people, vegetable people, can’t express themselves, and to us they are not even living a life. But how are we to know that they want to die? Perhaps, deep down in their heart, they want to struggle, they want to see life conquering death. And, besides, miracles do happen now and then. There are cases that, when a vegetable person is wakened from his long slumber by love and caring. If we rob him of that chance, we are committing murder. We are extinguishing hope. If we make the right to take another person’s life away illegally, I shudder to think what the consequences will be. Perhaps some family tired of taking care of an old person, might get rid of him for that reason. Perhaps a family full of daughters, sons, granddaughters, grandsons, gaping at the inheritance, will want to get rid of the old person for that reason. I really shudder to think the consequences. No! ifI want to die, it’s my own business. No one is going to take that decision for me. Yes, death might be a beautiful journey after the experience we have on earth, but I don’t want to be hurried onto that journey by anybody else. If I am determined …my life is determined by another person, I will rise from my grave and haunt that person and he will always feel the shadows, he will always feel the rain, and he will always hear the nightingale weep on, as if in pain.”。