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Essay On Physician Assisted Suicide

702 Words3 Pages

Meghan Wong
Period 5
2/12/15
Proposal for Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS)
1. The controversial issue I have chosen is about the current ban of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Euthanasia, sometimes referred as “mercy killing,” is the medical term of a physician administering any lethal agent to end a patients’ life. The two main types of euthanasia are active and passive; active euthanasia is defined as the physician directly administering the agent to the patient, while passive euthanasia is when the physician purposely withholds whatever life support the patient is on. Physician-assisted suicide, on the other hand, is similarly related to active euthanasia; the physician provides the patient with euthanasia though medicinal means, and allows the patient to be in-control of his death. I plan to side on allowing euthanasia in the United States and expanding physician-assisted suicide to other states (only the states of Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, and New Mexico have legalized PAS).
2. I have recently seen discussions of euthanasia on the news and internet; this topic has evoked much controversy between science and personal ethnics in the States. …show more content…

From my perspective, individuals who have watched their loved ones struggle near the end of their life, or individuals who are struggling health-wise, would be interested in this topic. Through my essay I will be able to connect with this ideal audience by discussing not only how euthanasia and PAS work, but also how they do fulfill ethical terms especially to the patients. In order to increase my audience’s interest, I can appeal to the foundation of what ideas the US is built on (ideas of natural rights, freedom, etc.) as a way to establish common ground with the reader and support my position of the issue. Since I have also found a patients’ experience with PAS online, I can incorporate it into a narrative for the introduction to create a captivating appearance of the

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