Physician Assisted Suicide Argumentative Essay

Imagine your closest loved one experiencing severe pain and suffering and watching them go through life wishing they could end their life. According to The New York Times article called “The Last Day of Her Life,” written by Robin Marantz Henig, a 65 year old woman named Sandy Bem found out that she had Alzheimer's at the age of sixty five years old in May 2009. She and her husband Daryl Bem were Psychology professors at Stanford then Cornell. Her family watched her slowly deteriorate as she battled with dementia. Knowing that life would be hard with her brain slowly degenerating and memory loss, she decided to plan her death. She would take her own life through physician-assisted suicide with a facilitated lethal drug prescription called Pentobarbital

Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) can be traced back to the 15th-17th centuries (A General History of Euthanasia, 6). Physician-Assisted Suicide is the practice of intentionally killing a patient for their own benefit due to health conditions or disability by a lethal injection or by the assistance of a physician. According to an article called “The Definition of Euthanasia,” by Tom L. Beauchamp and Arnold I. Davidson, Euthanasia is “the painless inducement of a quick death” (294). Currently in the United States Euthanasia/PAS is legal in five states: Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana and New Mexico. Outside of the US, it is legal in Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany (“Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide Laws” 1). Although these are the only states and countries that have legalized Euthanasia and PAS, many countries have not expressed why they support it or not. It will only take a matter of time until other countries join in this movement. Many people resort to the choice of life or death when they are overcome with struggles in their life such as pain and disability. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is an unethical way to deal with life and it should not be legal because it contradicts the Hippocratic

Although it is true, the families that have to go through the grieving process are often forgotten. In an article called, “Impact of Euthanasia on the Family,” Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s clients share personal stories how they were impacted from a family member who partook in physician-assisted suicide. "For months, we didn't have time to grieve properly -- and people didn't treat us like we were grieving, either...The guy who came to pick up the hospital bed that mother had used, told us: 'Normally, I would say I'm sorry, but I guess this is what she wanted.' He didn't think this was a loss for us” (par. 5) As shown in this scenario, families are not able to grieve properly and sometimes the pain in their hearts last a lifetime; it is a type of unbearable pain that can never be forgotten. To say that Euthanasia and PAS is a way to relieve pain would be false because it does cause pain to the people who are surrounded the person