Death with Dignity

770 Words2 Pages

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.
The law in Oregon is very specific in how it should be used and when a doctor can prescribe these medications. In Oregon, the Death with Dignity Act allows doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to patients who have been diagnosed by not one but two physicians as having a terminal illness and less than six months to live. Patients only qualify is if they are fully conscious when making the decision and are able to administer the lethal dose without the help of anyone else. While there is no oversight to protect patients from abuse of these laws, it is their choice w...

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...ll them slowly and painfully. No one wants their family members to remember them as sick weak but rather as happy and healthy and this gives the patients a way to do that.

Works Cited
Oregon Right to Life. “Assisted Suicide in Oregon Does Not Have Adequate Safeguards.” Assisted Suicide. Ed. Noël Merino. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. Current Controversies. Rpt. from “Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Experience: Safeguards Don’t Work.” 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
Roosevelt, Margot. “Choosing Their Time.” Time 28 Mar. 2005: n. pag. Print.
Smith, Michael. “There Is No Evidence of a Slippery Slope with Right-to-Die Laws.”The Right to Die. Ed. John Woodward. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2006. At Issue. Rpt. from “No ‘Slippery Slope’ Found with Physician Assisted Suicide.”MedPage Today. 2009. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 6 Dec. 2013.

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