Imagine a family member being extremely ill and suffering from day to day. When they decide they cannot take the pain any more, would you want them to pull through for you or would you fulfill their dying wish and let the doctor pull the plug? Could you even make a decision? Many people would not allow such an event to happen because with all the pain and confusion the patient is enduring may cause confusion and suicidal tendencies. However, there are people who believe otherwise. This is called physician-assisted suicide. Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is a controversial topic that causes much debate. Though it is only legal in the three states Oregon, Washington and Montana, there are many people who are for it and think it can be necessary. Even with morals put aside, Physician-assisted suicide should be illegal because it will be a huge violation of the oath every doctor must abide by, there would be no real way to distinguish between people who are suffering and the people who are faking or depressed, and it causes a lot of confusion to people with new diseases or new strands of disease that does not have a clear cure.
Physician assisted suicide or euthanasia should be a right granted to all citizens who are suffering from a degenerative, painful, or fatal condition that would cause them to be unable to enjoy their lives as healthy people do. Although there are certainly several debates against this viewpoint on assisted suicide, it is not up to ethicists to make decisions that infringe upon the rights of the ill and infirm. As it stands, there is a solid argument in favor of human euthanasia or physician assisted suicide. Patients have a right to make their own decisions to preserve free choice and human dignity. This right includes the right to choose assisted suicide. Having access to physician-assisted suicide allows the patient to maintain control over his or her situation and to end life in an ethical and merciful manner.
Physician-assisted suicide occurs when a physician facilitates a patient’s death by providing the necessary means and/or information to enable the patient to perform the life-ending act (AMA).Each and every human being knows that there will come a time when his or her life will come to an end. When, where, and how are some of the scariest things any of us have to think about. Everyday, people commit suicide because they are too scared to face the life they have ahead of them. Those who fail to actually end their lives are not punished, but are actually pitied and given a tremendous amount of help. What about those people who are too sick, or are in too much pain to actually carry out the act of suicide there selves? Should they be made to suffer for the rest of their lives, even though they might only have a couple of months, even weeks? Dr. Kevorkian, as well as other physicians, offer these kinds of people another option, a painless injection or a few short breaths of carbon monoxide to end all of their suffering. It isn’t fair for those of us who aren’t suffering, or those of us who have strong religious beliefs, to impose our feelings of what is morally or ethically wrong on the rest of society. Suicide is not an illegal act in this country, no one gets punished for attempting suicide, it’s only assisted suicide that is illegal. Ultimately, assisted suicide is a question of choice and empowering people to have control over their own bodies.
Derek Humphry’s intentions were to help terminally ill people die peacefully (“The Evolution of America’s Right-to-Die”). For other individuals who helped with assisted suicide they claim is is no different from taking a person off a ventilator or helped them stop dialysis, the decision is big, but it’s what is suppose to be done when a patient is suffering (“The Evolution of America’s Right-to-Die”). Derek Humphry had created an organization that Americans thought was crazy and unnecessary, “ And everybody said I was crazy- America was not ready for physician-assisted suicide. And I said, ‘oh, I think it is.’ And so I started out on a lonely path in 1980, campaigning for the right to choose to die when terminally ill” (“The Evolution of America’s Right-to-Die”). Most causes for legalizing euthanasia stem from unrelieved or undertreated pain of patients, with today’s modern technology, a lot of pain felt by patients can not be properly treated. However, most individuals seeking physician assisted suicide are usually well off and educated (“Stigma Around Physician-Assisted Dying Linger”). With patients having control about receiving or denying medical treatment, the decision to receive lethal injection or medication should also be within the rights of the patient. By giving a short or quick death a patient 's autonomy is still respected and shows
Envision someone lying in a hospital bed hooked up to several machines. There are doctors and nurses coming in constantly to check up on them while they are trying to get what little sleep they can through the pain, fatigue, and the slow wasting away of their body due to some sort of rare disease. On top of that they are suffering from side effects from countless drugs, constipation, delirium, and they can barely breathe. They have no appetite because they are constantly nauseated or throwing up. Their doctor has given them no chance of survival and they only have a few weeks left to live. They have said their goodbyes and they have come to terms with dying. They are prepared to meet their assumed maker. Now if someone had the chance to choose how their life ended would they take advantage of it? In March of 1998, a woman suffering with cancer did. She became the first person known to die under the law on physician-assisted suicide in the state of Oregon when she took a lethal dose of drugs. This law does not include people who are on a life support system and it also does not include those who have not voluntarily asked physicians to help them commit suicide. Many people worry that legalizing doctor assisted suicide appears irrational and violates the life-saving tradition of medicine and people argue that the reason why some terminally ill patients yearn to commit suicide is nothing more than depression. Physician-Assisted Suicide would lessen the human life or end the suffering and pain of those on the verge of dying; Physician-Assisted Suicide needs to be figured out for those in dire need of it or for those fighting against it. Physician-Assisted Suicide is currently illegal in 46 states; however it is legal in Vermont, Washi...
Imagine being told you only had so long to live and that you wouldn’t be able to do anything for yourself due to the amount of pain you're in. Imagine all of your family remembering you as weak and sick instead of how you lived the rest of your life, now imagine you can do something about that. This is the choice so many people in Oregon are glad to have, the choice to end their life with doctor assisted suicide when faced with a terminal illness. Steve Mason received assisted suicide after being told he only had six months to live, he says he wanted control over his death as much as his life, he will choose when and where it happens he says "I lived my life with dignity, I want to go out the same way." Assisted suicide is when a doctor prescribes a lethal prescription knowing that the patient plans to use them to commit suicide, this does not include refusing a ventilator or other life saving measures. Everyone should have a right to control their own life, so with certain provisions i believe everyone should be given the right to doctor assisted suicide when they face a disease that will be terminal guaranteeing they have no pain, and can choose where and when they pass.
Although it is a huge debate in the United States, many other countries around the world have made euthanasia legal. In figure 1, you can see some examples of this fact. But assisted suicide has been given a bad rap because people don’t understand it. Granted, some unions may have taken it a step too far. Take Belgium, for example. It is now legal for doctors to euthanize infants (Anderson). Some other places have made it too easy to take your own life. As one woman put it, patients were sharing the same elevator as the patients that had come for an earlier appointment (Anderson). But while some shout against the horrors of planned death, responsible adults are waiting out there for their chance to take control over their own life and how to end it. Assisted suicide is the action of taking a person’s life using a method that a certified physician has agreed to. Euthanasia is not wrong or unjust because it is every person’s own right to decide if they want the choice to pick the day when they die or not. When lawmakers made it okay to commit suicide, they used certain precautions so that no one is pushed into the wrong decision for them. These precautions include making sure that the patient requests suicide and fills out the necessary paperwork to act on their decision, only certified doctors are allowed to give out the prescriptions for the lethal drugs, and that the patient has to be given a diagnosis that will end in death (Prescription for Suicide).
In the past couple of years, the debate regarding physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia has become a major ethical issue in medical practice as well as an issue that involves the law and public policy. By definition, physician-assisted suicide is when a physician provides the necessary means (equipment or medication), or informs the patient of the most efficacious use of already available means, for the purpose of assisting the patient in ending his or her life.1-2 Euthanasia, also known as mercy killing, is the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of an individual suffering from a terminal illness or an incurable condition, in a relatively painless method.3 It is important to note that with PAS, the physician does not directly administer the medication to end life, instead they provide the medication and the patient performs the act themselves while in euthanasia another individual administers the medication regardless of patient consent or awareness.
Oftentimes when one hears the term Physician Assisted Suicide (hereafter PAS) the words cruel and unethical come to mind. On October 27, 1997 Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act, this act would allow terminally ill Oregon residents to end their lives through a voluntary self-administered dose of lethal medications that are prescribed by a physician (Death with Dignity Act) . This has become a vital, medical and social movement. Having a choice should mean that a terminally ill patient is entitled to the choice to pursue PAS. If people have the right to refuse lifesaving treatments, such as chemo and palliative care, then the choice of ending life with PAS should be a choice that is allowed.
The ethical issues of physician-assisted suicide are both emotional and controversial, as it struggles with the issue of life and death. If you take a moment and imagine how you would choose to live your last day, it is almost guaranteed that it wouldn’t be a day spent lying in a hospital bed, suffering in pain, continuously being pumped with medicine, and living in a strangers’ body. Today we live in a culture that denies the terminally ill the right to maintain control over when and how to end their lives. Physicians-assisted suicide “is the voluntary termination of one's own life by the administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician” (Medical Definition of Physician-Assisted Suicide, 2017). Physician-assisted
Everyone at some point in their life will have to deal with a tragic death. Either the death of a family member like a mother or father, or a best friend. It is easy say how you will feel once it happens, but what if you had to be the one to make the decision? Could you be the one held responsible to keep someone you love alive longer then they originally intended?. Many stories have turned into a media frenzy with the assisted suicide by Dr. Jack Kevorkian to help 54 yr. old Janet Adkins end her suffering from Alzheimer’s, to Terry Shiavo who suffered from extreme hypokalemia and her lifeless body was torn between her husband wanted to pull the plug to let her die a painless death to her family who wanted to keep her artificially kept alive.
¨ If I cannot give my consent to my own death, whose body is this? Who owns my life?- Sue Rodriguez. If one cannot choose when they die and how they go out, then are we really the owner of our life and body? Physician assisted suicide is the practice of providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life. When the patient is terminally ill and is in a lot of pain they should be able to end their own life instead of waiting for it to end itself. Even though some argue that physician assisted suicide is not a humane way of dying it still stops the patient´s suffering and gives them peace of mind.
Physician-assisted suicide refers to the physician acting indirectly in the death of the patient -- providing the means for death. The ethics of PAS is a continually debated topic. The range of arguments in support and opposition of PAS are vast. Justice, compassion, the moral irrelevance of the difference between killing and letting die, individual liberty are many arguments for PAS. The distinction between killing and letting die, sanctity of life, "do no harm" principle of medicine, and the potential for abuse are some of the arguments in favor of making PAS illegal. However, self-determination, and ultimately respect for autonomy are relied on heavily as principle arguments in the PAS issue.
Patrick Mathew, 43, had Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) where he could not move any part of his body. His son said that his dad struggled for seven months before he made the decision to end his life with lethal prescription which he did on march 10, 1999 (WRTL.ORG). Just like Patrick Mathew, more and more people are taking a lethal dose of prescription medication to end their lives (Barone,1). More than 750 people in Oregon ingested a lethal dose of prescription medication since the death with dignity act went into effect in 1997 (Barone,1). People who are taking the prescription are the ones who have no chance of survival, or are in severe pain decided they are not able to handle it anymore and decide to end their life (Barone,1). The Netherlands became the very first country to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide (The guardian, 2). To be able to have an assisted suicide the Netherlands imposed a strict set of conditions before being able to have that option by stating that the patient must be
How would you feel if this was your mother or any loved one? Euthanasia or assisted suicide for terminally ill patients should be legal."Supporters of the right to die movement argue that the courts have found just as there is a constitutional right to refuse medical treatment, that there is a constitutional right to ask for medical assistance in dying"(text 2). People should have the choice of Euthanasia or assisted suicide if they are terminally ill. Euthanasia and assisted suicide should be legal in all fifty states because people deserve the right to die with dignity and free from pain and suffering.