Lennie & Euthanasia

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well, but then Lennie screws up again. Lennie inadvertently kills Curley’s wife out of fear when she started to scream from him stroking her hair to hard. Lennie’s brain is too messed up to have any common sense. In source A, talking about non-voluntary euthanasia, it reads, “the person is mentally retarded to a very severe extent” (Source A). Lennie needs to be euthanized because his decision making is really starting to hurt the people around him. Euthanizing Lennie helped everybody involved with him.

One reason why it was not okay for George to euthanize Lennie was because, Lennie should have went to jail and faced his consequences. People argue that when Lennie killed Curley’s wife, he should have went to jail and served time for what he had done. George says, “Guess . . . we gotta tell the . . . guys. I guess we gotta get ‘im an’ lock ‘im up (Steinbeck 94). George believes that putting Lennie in jail is the best thing to do at first before he euthanizes him. George never knew how Lennie felt or if Lennie would have wanted to die. A person cannot tell what a person is feeling under any circumstance. In source C it argues, “I argue that without the testament of the patient herself as to the nature and magnitude of her suffering, physicians can never accurately weigh the benefits and burdens of a child’s life, and therefore any such system would condemn to death some children whose suffering is not unbearable” (Source C). This source says that George could not predict if euthanizing Lennie would have helped anyone in the long run. In source C it says, “The proponents of the VAE argue that when a patient judges that the burdens of living outweigh the benefits, euthanasia can be justified” (Source C). This quote basically states that the benefits of living outweigh death. Therefore, when George euthanized Lennie, he was not thinking about Lennie’s future. As a result, George euthanizing Lennie was murder.

There were many reasons why George did the right thing to kill Lennie. Lennie was a danger to himself and to the loved ones around him, and Lennie was going to keep on holding George back from prospering. Some other people argue that Lennie never agreed with George about George killing him, and that Lennie should have faced his consequences like everyone else. These people believe that George euthanizing Lennie is considered murder. This argument right here shows why euthanasia is a very controversial topic in the United States of America today. All and all, George did the right thing to euthanize Lennie.