Assisted Death In most countries, and most states in the United States, the act of Physician-assisted suicide is illegal (Dying with Dignity Acts). What exactly is Physician-Assisted Suicide? “Physician-Assisted suicide is the suicide of a patient suffering from an incurable disease.”(Physician-Assisted Suicide) Many people are trying to make assisted suicide legal in all fifty states. However in Oregon, Washington, Montana, Colorado, Vermont, California, and The District of Columbia “PAS” is legal. (Dying with Dignity Acts) These states legality for “PAS”, fall under the dying with dignity act. “The Dying with Dignity Act lets patients who are suffering from terminal illnesses die peacefully when they want to. (Dying with Dignity Acts). …show more content…
There are many people suffering and physically lingering because of terminal illness. “Advocates of assisted-suicide laws believe that mentally competent people who are suffering and have no chance of long-term survival should have the right to die if and when they choose”(NPR Staff). This could not be truer, every person should have the right to decide, if well enough when it is appropriate to end their life, only if they have a terminal illness. Since the act began in Oregon in 1997 almost 700 people who are no longer suffering have taken their lives with prescribed medicine (Staff). Think about all the people from different states who wish they could stop their suffering so they do not have to be a burden on their family. There are many reasons why assisted suicide should become legal. When someone is suffering their quality of life has been taken, those people are no longer able to do the activities they once adored. Terminal illness tends to take everything from a person including their dignity. There was a young woman, Britney Maynard, who was twenty-nine years old when she was diagnosed with stage four Glioblastoma multiform (a malignant brain tumor) she moved to Oregon for that reason to be able to have right to assisted suicide. Before her death, she tried to live life as