A long, ongoing battle in the institutional review boards, ethics committee and in the United states federal court is Physician assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia. PAS refers to “a third part action informed by the intended objective (at the very least) to furnish a potential suicide with the lethal means necessary to end his or her bodily life” (Parteson 11). There are victims suffering in silence because of this issue and it calls for immediate action with a federal regulated law. The victims are cancer patients who want to end suffering from their illness and impending death, patients that are brain dead or on life support, and patients that have diseases that cause excruciating pain that ultimately deteriorate the quality of life until it is gone. The other victims are the families that watch their loved ones suffer, or care for the ones on life support for years without being able to aid them in their wish to die. There are also those potential victims that have a chance to fight and live, though in certain cases this fight has been taken away. There is a concern for innocent deaths such as the Jack Kevorkian case, “out of Kevorkian’s first 93 victims, only 27 were determined by autopsy to be terminal, that is, to have less than six months to live” (Olevich 21), that is why strict regulations is critical. The United States Supreme Court has left the decision to legalize and regulate assisted suicide to the states. Washington and Oregon are among the first to take the lead. Although they have taken the initiative, they are lacking fine detail and have left a few holes in the law that could create potential unnecessary deaths. Science is rapidly advancing pushing the boundaries past the national ethics committee, it is time ...
The right to die and euthanasia, also known as physician-assisted suicide, have long been topics of passionate debate. Euthanasia is simply mercy killing while the phrase “physician-assisted suicide” regards the administering or the provision of lethal means to aid in the ending of a person’s life. The right to die entails the belief that if humans have the governmental and natural right to live and to prolong their lives then they should also have the right to end their life whenever desired. Articles such as Gary Cartwright’s “Last Rights” and Margaret Somerville’s “The Role of Death” provide the life support for these two topics will likely never fade away. Both articles cover physician-assisted suicide and the right to die. Cartwright’s article is much more personal and easier for readers to relate to while Somerville’s article is very aggressive and tries to persuade the reader with exhaustive vocabulary and unproven facts and statistics.
Physician assisted suicide, also known as right to die has become a hot button issue within the last twenty years. The reason behind the interest is because in the “land of the free” known as America, that promotes independence and personal rights; it seems quite regressive to many to deny a person their right to die. After the 1997 Supreme Court decision which declined to nationally recognize assisted suicide, Chief Justice William Rehquist stated this issue best when he said we are “engaged in an earnest and profound debate about the morality, legality and practicality of physician assisted suicide as it should in a democratic society”(Karim Paragraph 10). Cut to 2014 and over ten years later this issue has gained more momentum than ever, specifically in California after the California Compassionate Choices Act following the passing and implementation of The Dignity Act in Oregon (Tucker 1611). The benefits of assisted suicide include an end in suffering for patients while saving their family from future debt and allowing their organs and the energy used to keep them alive to save others who can live a complete and healthy life. There is some personal and moral opposition to physician assisted suicide nationally, but the positives outweigh the negatives and California should take further steps in aiding and providing options for those dying.
Over the years the medical field has developed many miraculous ideas and procedures. From organ transfers to blood transfusions, tons of lives have been saved. A doctor’s whole purpose is to help those dying to live. Yet, doctors have developed PAS, Physician Assisted Suicide, also known as Physician Assisted Death, and not to be mixed up with Euthanasia. Physician Assisted Suicide is morally wrong, gives doctors too much power, and it opens a door for those less critical patients to receive treatment too.
Physician-Assisted Suicide as It Applies to Current U.S. Policy
1.1 Definition of the Problem
As people in the United States assume more active roles in their personal healthcare and the healthcare policies of the country, debates concerning individual autonomy in healthcare begin to emerge. Among these debates is one contemplating the legality of physician-assisted suicide. The United States federal government has deemed this medical procedure an act of homicide, but some states have instated certain policies allowing the procedure. Due to the contending federal and state policies, the populace is left to ask if the current federal prohibitions are justified and applicable to United States healthcare policy.
Amongst the legal and medical communities there are many definitions of assisted suicide, along with the contentious debate of suicide that is assisted by a physician rather a family member or friend. PAS has some benefits with it but it also has some disadvantages. The benefits of assisted suicide for the terminally ill individual are significant, even though the debates still raise questions about the responsibilities of the medical comm...
Death and dying are a natural part of our lives. Not a day goes by that we do not take the chance of being run over by a car while running, being stabbed in a robbery, or being poisoned by bacteria in our food. In all of these cases, we have very little choice in deciding our fate. But what about those cases when we can do something to affect the dying process? What if we can decide whether we wish to live or die? For most of us, that is still uncharted territory, and just the thought of it chills us to the bone. Euthanasia is one such opportunity where a person can affect the dying process. It is not, as many people believe, a case of a physician killing a patient, but instead, a case where a patient who is facing a prolonged, painful, and, finally, terminal illness can make a conscious and reasoned choice to end his or her suffering early and in a dignified manner. It is the purpose of this paper to prove to you that euthanasia in the form of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) should be legalized. That a person facing a terminal illness should have the opportunity, and the right, to choose to die in a dignified manner when faced with a prolonged and terminal illness. That a physician should not be restrained in committing an act which might be in the best interest of a patient. And that if legalized, it would be possible to protect the patient's interests through regulation, and in effect, make euthanasia a perfectly safe choice for a patient.
McCuen, Gary E. Doctor Assisted Suicide and the Euthanasia Movement. Hudson, WI: GEM Publications, 1994. Print.
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
Physician -assisted suicide has been a conflict in the medical field since pre- Christian eras, and is an issue that has resurfaced in the twentieth century. People today are not aware of what the term physician assisted suicide means, and are opposed to listening to advocates’ perspectives. Individuals need to understand that problems do not go away by not choosing to face them. This paper’s perspective of assisted suicide is that it is an option to respect the dignity of patients, and only those with deathly illness are justified for this method.