Physician – assisted suicide There are many issues surrounding what ways health care providers can help terminally ill patients. These issues have been argued for many years and are continuing to be argued. Physician – assisted suicide is something that is frowned upon amongst the country. Many people feel that it is wrong for a patient to ask a physician to end their life regardless of their medical situation. On the other hand, many feel that it should be an option.
Physician – assisted suicide legally give a person the right to end their life with the help and guidance of a medical practitioner by prescribing lethal doses of drugs to a patient. Many confuse physician – assisted suicide with euthanasia, euthanasia is where the practitioner himself would inject the lethal drug into the patient, and decide when it will be injected. In physician – assisted suicide, the patient himself decides that he or she wants the lethal medication, and the patient gets to choose when he or she wants to ingest the lethal medication
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Within the United States physician – assisted suicide is legal in four states, and those states are California, Oregon, Washington, and Vermont. Oregon and Washington have some restrictions which are that the terminally ill patient must be at least eighteen years of age, a resident of Oregon or Washington, capable of making and communication health care decision for him or her self, diagnosed with a terminal illness which may result in death with six months, and two physicians must agree. There is also a request timeline in which the patient must orally make the request to a physician, have a fifteen-day waiting period, make another oral request to a physician, have a written request, then finally there is a 48 hour waiting period for the