Commentary On Physician Assisted Suicide

Commentary On A Medical Dilemma

Physician-assisted suicide is a large moral controversy in the medical field. Jukka Varelius explains the key points about the dilemma on whether medical patients should have the right to ask doctors to terminate their lives, in order to end their suffering. In “Voluntary Euthanasia, Physician-Assisted Suicide, and the Right to do Wrong”, the author addresses how assisting suicide is morally wrong in our society, but yet patients insist that they have the moral right to end their lives if they are in agony and facing significant torment due to their ill status. Jukka, in his point of view, outlines the multiple problems that go along with the main conflict, such as should a doctor be forced to end a suffering patient’s life even if the physician does not wish to do so and should the patient have the ability to ask for euthanasia even if there is still a possibility that the patient’s status can improve. Mr. Varelius does a successful job portraying the key points in this conflict, but does not strongly support any side in the

In the quote “From the viewpoint of a gravely suffering patient, who desires to end his life, the prospect of having to wait for the results of such further studies—results that might be quite disappointing to him—can be overwhelming. One way for such a patient to react to the predicament is to insist that he has a moral right to VE and PAS even if the procedures were morally wrong” (Varelius 230). Jukka insists that the major reason why voluntary euthanasia and PAS should be legal is due to the ideal concept that people have a right to end their lives if they choose to do so. Jukka calls this point “a moral right to do wrong”. He doesn’t state if he agrees with the backers of VE or not. Jukka simply states why they would use that as their main