As you can see mental illness is a serious and painful illness for someone to go through. A neurodegenerative disease is a mental illness that is more aggressive with the average American person who is first diagnosed with dementia - a type of neurodegenerative disease - living an average of 4.95 years after (Lorenzl, S., Nübling, G., Perrar, M. K., & Voltz, R. 2013). This need to die from non-terminally ill patients can be suffering as much as someone with a physical disorder. In Canada, many people are condemned to a lifetime of suffering, whether through physical disabilities or mental ones and because of this, many people all over the world want to end their lives. What is the difference between euthanasia and assisted suicide? “Assisted suicide [is when] patients take the lethal drugs themselves”, whereas “euthanasia [is when] …show more content…
Dr. Kevorkian, a euthanasia and assisted suicide activist did not believe in the Hippocratic Oath - which swears that healthcare employees will always try to protect and save life - as he stated, “just as the oath never had any real meaning with regard to abortion, so too it’s now irrelevant in the right-to-die debate” (Ball, H. 2012). Both of these controversial subjects bring on our question of freedom and Ball explains this, “the suffering of a … person cannot be deemed any less intimate or personal, or any less deserving of protection from unwarranted government interference than that of a pregnant woman” (Ball, H. 2012). The right to be able to choose what happens to a person’s body is controversial all over the world however, it should not be. If a patient that is suffering from an illness as aggressive as a form of dementia wants to die, no one should be able to stop them. Since these facts have proven that death and suicide are natural and people have a right to their bodies, euthanasia and assisted suicide for those suffering the mental illness should be