The Difference Between Physician Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

British philosopher Stephen Toulmin adds six terms to Aristotle’s shaping of an

argument. The six terms are the claim, grounds, warrants, backing, qualifiers and the

rebuttals. Toulmin proclaims that these six terms can be used to analyze arguments and

can also be applied within any argument. Emanuel LL, CF von Gunten, and FD Farris

are all authors of “EPEC Participant’s Handbook” they make use of all six of Toulmin’s

terms in this controversial article.

The authors define the difference between physician assisted suicide and

euthanasia. This source contains different viewpoints, written by various

authors that contain information about both sides of the issue. They explain the certain

factors to why patients may ask for assistance in their suicide. Their goal in the

article, is to explain to the physician’s about the certain steps and protocols that are

needed when responding to patient suicide requests or assisting in their suicide.

Claim or thesis is what you are seeking to prove and what the argument is about.

There are three types of different claims, which are fact, value and policy. The claim of

fact argues about history or the future. Claims of value, argues about judgments, such

as, good or bad, wrong or right. The policy claim, argues about what should or should

not have happened. This article is a claim of value, because we are dealing with a right

or wrong issue. The authors claim is physician assisted suicide should be legalized.

Data is the second component in Toulmin’s argument model. Data includes the

evidence, facts and is often the reasons and logic that support the claim. There are a lot

of facts used in this article to support the claim for legalization of assisted su...

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...s do have an obligation to help suffering patients. The

backing stands behind the warrant, the US government agrees that the American

people deserve to have the rights to quality palliative care. The rebuttal or challenges

the article faces is depressed patients are more likely to ask for assistance in their

death, even though they might not have life threatening medical problems. The qualifier in

this article, has precise limitations on what is similar and what is different about

physician assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Works Cited

Emanuel,LL, CF von Gunten, and FD Farris. "EPEC assisted suicide." Department

end of life. Northwestern University. Institute for Ethics at the American Medical

Association, 1999. Web. 02 June 2011.

http://endoflife.northwestern.edu/physician_assisted_suicide_debate/module5.pdf