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Essay On Legalizing Physician Assisted Suicide

577 Words3 Pages

In the United States 5 out of the 50 states have legalized physician assisted suicide (CNN). Legalizing PAS will be beneficial to the terminally ill and their families. It will also give the terminally ill a chance to die on their own. Religion and moral standards have stopped the legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide, but legalizing Physician-Assisted Suicide would help the suffering end for the terminally ill, they would be able to make the choice on when and how their life ends, and PAS lowers healthcare costs for the patient. Firstly, why make the terminally ill suffer, when they can end their pain? As said by Timothy Quill and Jane Greenlaw, “If a patient’s pain and suffering cannot be sufficiently relieved with state-of-the-art palliative care, then the physician has an obligation to do everything within his or her power to relieve that suffering, even to the point of hastening death if there are no realistic alternatives acceptable to the patient”. If the option to end one’s life is available by a doctor’s aid then America should help end the suffering “without using extreme medical measures” (De La Torre). Legalize PAS to end suffering of the terminally ill. …show more content…

Many patients that request assistance with suicide is because they want to die on their own circumstances, whether that be at home or the patient wanting to die on a certain day. Most patients choose this option because to them living is pointless (Jackson). Knowing you’re going to die and be in pain isn’t easy. “Many terminally ill patients are in favor of physician assisted suicide and also euthanasia because it stops both the emotional and physical pain from getting intolerable (Wilson). The patient can decide when they want to die instead of waiting for the pain to worsen and for the body to shut

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Physician assisted suicide should be decriminalized because, from an ethical and economic perspective, those with terminal diseases have a right to choose death. Many patients feel that even though they will eventually die due to their illness that ending their life will be the best way in the end, but due to expenses they can not

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The medical field is filled with opportunities and procedures that are used to help improve a patient’s standard of living and allow them to be as comfortable as possible. Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is a method, if permitted by the government, that can be employed by physicians across the world as a way to ease a patient’s pain and suffering when all else fails. PAS is, “The voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician.”-Medicinenet.com. This procedure would be the patient’s decision and would allow the patient to end their lives in a more peaceful and comfortable way, rather than suffering until the illness takes over completely. Physician assisted suicide should be permitted by the government because it allows patients to end their suffering and to pass with dignity, save their families and the hospital money, and it allows doctors to preserve vital organs to save

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In a request for Physician assisted suicide the patient not only wishes to die because of the pain, but the scare that they will become a burden to others. Likewise, losing themselves from what they used to be, and are just mentally exhausted from the process of dying. In cases where patients face these challenges “the withdrawal of treatment is appropriate”(Myers 401) because if life feels like a prison, then the government does not have the right to keep them locked up. There are many patients that are in the hospice care program living out the horrible situations as they cannot take care of themselves. For instance, Courtney Campbell notes “nearly 90% of patients who have used Oregon’s ground-breaking “Death with Dignity Act” from 1998-2011 , and over 96% of patients in 2011 were in hospice care”(1).

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Statistically speaking, PAS is not that common, meaning there is not a likely chance that this practice could become overly common. In 2014, there were merely 368 confirmed cases of Physician Assisted Suicide in the United States, all of which were terminally ill patients. (CNN). So any argument stating that the numbers could get out of hand and the reasoning could be shoddy would be shot down by the fact that the numbers have remained constant for nearly twenty-seven years since the introduction of the practice (CNN). Ethically, the right thing to do would be to end the suffering as an act of mercy directed at the patient.

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Physician assisted suicide has been a controversial topic in the medical world for centuries. Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is the act in which a doctor provides their terminally ill patients with the knowledge and means to commit suicide. Doctors must inform their patients on the lethal drugs that may be used and the process of the suicide. Physician assisted suicide has been legalized in a few states throughout the United States including Oregon, Montana, Vermont, Washington, and Bernalillo County in New Mexico. Although many families and doctors agree with the idea of physician assisted suicide, even more people disagree with “mercy killing” because it exploits the doctor's hippocratic oath and may violate the constitution.

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Should assisted suicides be allowed for terminally ill patients? In my perspective, I believe they should be allowed for a few different reasons. Many people worry that legalizing doctor assisted suicide is irrational and violates the life-saving tradition of medicine. However, physician-assisted suicide should be legalized because it offers terminally ill people an opportunity for a peaceful death by recognizing the inadequacies of current medical practice in their treatment. First off, how do you think a patient would feel if they have been in a hospital bed for many months suffering a battle they know they can’t defeat?

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After researching both sides of the argument, it is clear that the benefits of physician-assisted suicide outweigh the disadvantages. The benefits of ending a patient’s pain and suffering, minimizing the emotional and financial effects on families, and preserving the right for patients to decide their own fate, supports the legalization of physician-assisted suicide.

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Knowledge is power and in regards to PAS that power could be utilized towards ending the suffering of terminally ill patients if that’s what is desired. Physicians need to optimize skills of assessing pain and functional capacity. The physicians need to learn how to better treat pain and be able to identify psychiatric symptoms of terminal illnesses (Snyder & Sulmasy, 213). It is important for physicians to have the patient consider all other alternatives before choosing PAS and go over the risks and benefits of choosing PAS. One other implementation that should be a requirement in order for PAS to be legalized throughout the rest of American is that a

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Looking on the other end of the spectrum, what in case if the patient did not have terminal illness. For instance, a patient who is born deaf and blind. Even though he or she might have longer life span or not be bed bound, those patients might be suffering everyday and wish to end their life sooner rather than live a miserable and unsatisfying lifestyle. Thus, people with non-terminal illness should have the option as well to decide if they would like to end their life via Physician-assisted suicide.

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However, the sad truth is that nobody gets to choose how he or she dies. Or do they? In some states such as Oregon, Montana, and Washington physician-assisted suicide has been made legal, allowing people to choose death. This sounds very dark and wrong but the truth is that physician assisted suicide should be legal throughout the United States because people deserve the right to make choices for themselves in life, because some people would die an extremely painful death, and because some people have major disabilities that prevent them from really living.

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If assisted suicide is legal it will not force patients to take their own lives. Patients have taken their own lives in fear of what will become of them later in their illness and fear that no one would be able to help them (Rogatz 32). Legalizing assisted suicide can make it safer for the patient and family. It gives them less of a chance at failure and causing more problems. Informing the patients on the topic would make it safer for

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It has been in the air for a while whether PAS should be legalized or left illegal. When taking one side or the other people most often consider the costs, dangers, and feelings of other parts of PAS, this includes the patient. These factors play a big role, but is assisted suicide really humane? In deciding the way this country as a whole is going to go, is killing the terminally ill, or medically disabled patients, the way we should value human life? These are just some of the many flaws in PAS.

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