Physician Assisted Suicide Argumentative Essay

The recent legislative advancements concerning physician-assisted suicide have unveiled a series of controversial arguments regarding the right to die. As told by The Gale Encyclopedia of Public Health, “Assisted Suicide is a form of self-inflicted death in which individuals voluntarily bring about their own death with the help of another, usually a physician, relative, or friend. Assisted suicide is sometimes called physician-assisted death or PAD” (Frey 915). Four U.S. states now have legalized the practice of assisted suicide and other countries across the world are successfully making headway in their push for physician-assisted suicide. But there continues to be adverse reactions concentrated towards the practice. After reading and comprehending the controversies of the topic, I have come to a firm belief that terminal patients should have the right to control their death through the use of assisted suicide when faced with

There sometimes is a point that a human reaches in degeneration that modern medicines cannot aide or remedy. As described by Lewis Cohen, “Medication such as morphine can help the terminally ill manage pain, but it can’t ameliorate their agony at no longer being the same people that they were before the illness” (Cohen). The unbearable pain and loss of normalcy that accompanies those with terminal illnesses is what pushes them to consider assisted suicide. The mentality is seen simply as “if one is going to die anyway, then why not choose how and when.” Unfortunately, the choice of death for those with incurable circumstances has been twisted into other views and is being misinterpreted as a way for doctors to mercy kill their patients. Of course, there will always be individuals that in a sense destruct the simple nature of a practice, but this should not obstruct from the individual choice of each