Daniel E Lee's Article: The Ethical Issue Of Physician-Assisted Suicide

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The central concern of this article is the ethical issue of patient’s autonomy when it comes to physician-assisted suicide. The author, Daniel E. Lee, opposes the idea of physician-assisted suicide agreeing that “it is for God and God alone to make an end of human life and that God gives life to us as an inalienable loan”. However, Daniel recognizes that there are compelling arguments in favor for the issue. He believes the best way to alleviate the situation is to respond “in a loving, caring manner,” in hopes that “suffering individuals” will rarely, if ever, choose physician-assisted suicide.
To begin, one of the most common point of view for opposing assisted suicide is the explicitly mentioned ethical issue of paternalism—the idea that …show more content…

Even though he uses Netherland’s experience as a drastic outlook, he did mention that “a slippery slope is NOT imminent” if decisions are in favor for assisted suicide. This further illustrates the balance he maintained throughout his paper.
All in all, I believe the author was mildly melodramatic in his approach to defend his argument. It was like saying “there is nothing we can do if someone who is terminally ill chooses to commit suicide due to the arguments built in favor of it. Might as well support them, and hope for the best”. Even though it was mildly melodramatic, his tone throughout the article was not biased. Overall, I believed the author presented his case well.
My overall evaluation of the article is that the author, even though is opposed to physician-assisted suicide, after analyzing the literature have settled for subtle coercion for those who chooses assisted-suicide. Subtle because he mentioned “if we were to do a better job of responding to suffering individuals in a loving, caring manner, physician-assisted suicide would in all likelihood be an option rarely, if ever, chosen”. It was as if he said with love and care we will get those who are suffering to choose to live. However, with the paramount of evidence he presented in this article, I believed his conclusions were

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