Prompt: Some people believe that professional athletes should be free to use performance enhancing substances if they wish. Do you agree?

Over the past two decades, performance-enhancing substances, have become more and more widespread. Profound professional athletes have been caught using them, in order to overtake their competitors. But, should athletes have the choice of taking or not these substances? In my opinion they should not and in this essay I will discuss why. Ċ Firstly, every athlete has the right to choose what he does with his body. In a free society, nobody has the authority over the substances he takes. Although, when competing at high levels, he must follow the rules. Moreover, they give the athlete the ability to achieve astonishing records. To illustrate, the university of Cambridge, conducted a study, and found out that steroids improved individual’s performance by a percentage of 30%. On the other hand, the drawbacks of using these drugs are numerous. Ċ At first glance, long term use, destroys the athlete’s health and, in most cases, leads to a premature death. Moreover, it can have a tole on the athlete’s hormones, which can result in sterilization. For example, the Worldwide health organization, issued a study, showing that more that 20% of people that have used these drugs are not able to have children. Lastly, enhancing athletes, revokes the purity from sports and makes them unappealing. Ċ Taking everything into consideration, illegal substances are tearing down the sports industry. Thus, people from a young age should be informed about the possible dangers of these and governments should do their best to stop their distribution in order to sustain the value of athleticism.