Assisted Suicide Persuasive Speech

In 2015 nearly 68% of Americans said doctor assisted suicide should be legal for terminally ill patients (Gallup). There are plenty of people who have a terminal illness, who have been told they will not be able to live for more than two years, that have lived up to five or even six years. Do terminally ill patients want to die faster? Do the terminally ill patients know what that will do to their families and friends? There was an elderly man who was on oxygen and he knew right where he wanted to die, in his bed at his own home. So what did he do? He took off his oxygen and laid in bed to die. He lived for three days without his oxygen before he passed away. His passing put a great amount of grief onto the family. That was not doctor assisted

Supreme Court ruled that it should be up to the states.There was once an oath called the Hippocratic Oath, that was written in 400 B.C., that states, “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan” (Pickert). The State of Oregon has taken it upon themselves since 1977 with the “Death with Dignity” law that allows terminally ill patients to commit suicide with a prescription of a lethal medication dosage. In 2008, the state of Washington passed a law that allowed hospice patients, who have 6 months or less expected to live, to take a lethal dose of medication (Pickert). The Hippocratic Oath should still be around today instead of the “Death with Dignity” because there are many ways to keep dignity when someone is in the process of

The penalties for suicide include: a denial of a “Christian” blessing or burial and the person would get a stake driven through the body to dishonor the victim. The survivors of the victim would have to surrender the property of the victim. Also, anyone who helped convince or watched the victim commit suicide would be liable for murder. The early American colonies started to follow in England's footsteps, punishing both suicides and assisted suicide as felonies. This continued after the Revolutionary War and adoption of the Constitution. Anyone who had killed another person for the sake of an illness or as a mercy to relieve pain and misery had committed murder. Many states had realized that it did not make sense to punish someone who was no longer living. They had also realized that punishing the victims family for the crime is unfair when they had nothing to do with the situation. This changed in the mid 1800’s when they stopped punishing people for suicide but they still punished for assisted suicide. Towards the late 1800’s the United States made a law stating, “furnish[ing] another person with any deadly weapon or poisonous drug, knowing that such person intends to use such weapon or drug in taking his own life,” (Cassity). To restate this law in better terms, a person is not allowed to give another person any deadly weapon or drug knowing their intentions are to take their own