Physician Assisted Suicide Case Study

Physician-assisted suicide is a controversial topic for both medical professionals and lawmakers. The United Kingdom’s House of Lords debated if the legalization of physician-assisted suicide was necessary when Joel Joffe proposed the “Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill” to the House of Lords in 2003. The bill did not pass in 2003, however, the debate is still continuing if physician-assisted suicide should be legal. Craig Gannon and Eva Garland are two professionals in the medical field who disagreed with the Assisted Dying Bill. The following essay will be summarizing Gannon’s and Garland’s“Legalisation of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: a Professional’s View” article in the International Journal of Palliative Nursing. Gannon is a consultant in palliative medicine at The Princess Alice Hospice in Esher, United Kingdom and Eva Garland is Director of Clinical Services at The Princess Alice Hospice in Esher, United Kingdom. Gannon

The risks are “hasty decisions to kill a patient”(Gannon and Garland 129). The patients will consider themselves a burden and addresses the issue that the patients might feel a “duty to die rather than the right to die”(Gannon and Garland 129). From a physician’s perspective where trust between patients and physicians is key, the legalisation of euthanasia would undermine the trust. The authors are both palliative care professionals who care for dying patients. Euthanizing the patients is helping the patients. Physicians are there to help patients not kill them. The authors state ”Killing does not provide a net gain in health, death is not a better state of health and quality of life does not improve when you are dead”(Gannon and Garland 130). Physicians are not qualified to kill when it is the physician's job to keep the patients alive and as well as possible. If euthanasia becomes legal there should be a purpose built clinic with trained designated