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Who has the right to decide when someone lives or dies?
Students will:
STARTER: 1. Divide the students into pairs or small groups, and set the task of deciding what jobs each member of the class is best suited for. The only catch is that each person has their future career decided by the other person/people in their pair/group. Allow the students to report back, and then ask whether or not they are happy with their suggested career. Ask the students whether they think that an exercise like this is a good way of choosing careers, and why. The view will probably be expressed that nobody should have the choice of what job they do taken away from them and made by somebody else. Ask whether it is always the case that we are in the best position to make our own decisions? Read through the following list of decisions, and ask the students to discuss who should make those decisions. You could even have a vote at the end of each discussion if you wanted. • How you spend your free time • How you spend time in lessons at school • Whether you get married, and if so who to • How much tax everybody should pay • How to treat any medical condition that you may suffer from Explain that for some decisions, it is clear who should make them, whereas others are less clear-cut. In this lesson you are going to be looking at one particular area where there are many different opinions and no easy answers: Euthanasia. MAIN ACTIVITIES: 2. Give out the worksheet Euthanasia: a gentle and easy death? And read through it with the class, making sure that students have grasped the key terms and definitions on the worksheet. The 'Talk about' section can be completed in pairs or as a whole class discussion. 3. Introduce the clip from the film Million Dollar Baby (Warner Brothers 2004, certificate 12). Click here to buy the video online. Explain that Maggie (Hilary Swank) is a professional boxer who was paralysed in her last fight. In this scene she is visited by her manager Frank (Clint Eastwood). Ask the students to imagine themselves in Maggie's position – she has been told that she is paralysed from the neck down, and that there is no medical likelihood of her condition improving. Start time: 1.46.46 End time: 1.51.29 Clip length: Four minutes and 43 seconds The clip starts with Frank and Maggie talking. The first line of this clip (which starts in the middle of a scene) is Maggie's 'You ain't gonna make me talk no more Yeats are you?' The last line is the narrator's voice over saying '...padded her tongue so she couldn't bite'. If you don't want to show the blood-stained scene of medical staff trying to stop Maggie from biting her own tongue, stop the tape at 1.50.12 after Frank says 'I can't'. You may have to explain, when Maggie asks Frank to do for her what her father did for Axel, she is referring to an old family dog who had to be put down. Ask the students to produce a list of reasons why Maggie wants to die (including reasons specifically given by Maggie, as well as other reasons that could apply but which are not mentioned in the clip). Now ask the students to produce a list of reasons that might make Maggie choose to live. Compare the two lists and ask the students if they feel that one list provides a more compelling argument than the other. It might be worth acknowledging at this point that it is very difficult to make a decision like this for somebody else. 4. Now show the second clip from Million Dollar Baby. If you used the longer version of the first clip, carry on from where you stopped. If you used the shorter version, you will need to wind forward a little. Ask the students to shift their focus from Maggie's situation to Frank's: how does Maggie's predicament affect him? Start time: 1.51.30 End time: 1.53.46 Clip length: Two minutes and 16 seconds This clip starts with Frank walking down the street, and then cuts to a scene of him sitting in a church talking with the Priest. The first line is the Priest saying 'You can't do it, you know that'. The scene ends with the Priest saying 'If you do this thing you'll be lost somewhere so deep you'll never find yourself again.' Ask the students to sum up Frank's dilemma. He has been asked to help Maggie to end her life, and is torn between two possible responses. Ask the students to make two more lists as before, this time listing the reasons why Frank should do what Maggie asked him, and then listing the reasons why he shouldn't. Again, ask the students to compare the two lists and express their views as to which line or argument is the most compelling. 5. Now ask the students to consider the Priest's words. Explain that his final comments about Frank being 'lost somewhere so deep you'll never find yourself again' if he helped Maggie to die were not about Frank being punished eternal for killing Maggie. Rather he was talking about the sense of guilt that Frank would carry with him for doing something that Frank considers to be a sin. Draw out that while someone in Maggie's position is faced with extreme anxiety and emotional pain, the people who care for that person are similarly in a horrifically difficult position. In considering the moral implications of euthanasia, it is important to consider how any action (or inaction) will affect everyone concerned. 6. Point out to the students the Euthanasia is a complex ethical issue, and one which Christians have traditionally had difficulties with. Give out Bibles and copies of the Euthanasia: What does the Bible say? worksheet and ask the students to answer the questions about Bible passages to get a clearer sense of some of a Christian perspective on euthanasia. If there is time, allow the students to discuss their answers as a whole class activity. PLENARY / ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING 7. Ask the students to re-write the second scene (where Frank talks with the Priest) to give a fuller account of the Christian perspective on Euthanasia. Then they should write another scene where Frank goes back to Maggie and tells her what he has decided to do. Students should feel free to express their own views on the subject (via Frank) in this second piece of writing. Students may find the following web pages useful in researching their written assignments: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/health/2001/euthanasia/default.stm www.ethicsforschools.org/euthanasia/index.htm www.cofe.anglican.org/news/news_item.2004-10-19.9713099720
A copy of Million Dollar Baby and the means to play it Copies of the Euthanasia: a gentle and easy death worksheet Copies of the Euthanasia: what does the Bible say? worksheet Bibles
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