Delbeke Assisted Suicide Summary

Delbeke discusses how some people believe assisted suicide should not just be up to physicians to perform. Some people feel that, depending on the task, even nurses, social workers and clergy could perform the suicide. A benefit of this would be less responsibility and burden on the physician, but there are more bad factors. If it starts to become acceptable to let non-physicians perform assisted suicide then more people may become involved than necessary. Delbeke provides information that she thinks assisted suicide would become institutionalized and a certain routine would come about. She believes that it would be much easier to have a physician do it because they already have all the necessary means of performing the task. The physician could discuss the suicide with a psychologist, a social worker or a clergyman to make sure the patient truly wants the suicide. For now physician assisted suicide still depends on the patients state of health, but a new question arising is whether someone can have assisted suicide if they are just tired of life. If someone is tired of life because they have medical issues, but just not as severe as a terminal illness

John Geddes used to be an English teacher in Canada, now is a writer and is Ottawa Bureau Chief at Maclean’s. As talked about in the article, “Cross-border shopping for a good death,” by John Geddes, Quebec was the first to pass it for people suffering from an incurable illness. The Supreme Court is starting to feel that it should not just be limited to people with an incurable illness, but even some with a mental illness or handicap. As mentioned in the article almost all Canadians have family members, friends or someone they know who could have benefitted from assisted suicide because they had to suffer from a painful death. This can apply to anywhere in the world, not just