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Physician-Assisted Suicide Case Study

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Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) is a controversial ethical problem in medicine. PAS is defined as “the practice of providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life” (Meier, et al., 1194). The first significant push for the legalization of PAS arose as a part of the eugenics movement, then further publicized in the 1990’s with Dr. Kevorkian’s case, where he assisted over 40 people in committing suicide in Michigan (Angell, 54). Recently, the ruling of the Brittany Maynard case has brought the nation to discuss the ethical issues of PAS. Her case resulted in bills in several states on the topic. Oregon was the first state to legalize PAS in 1997 …show more content…

With PAS, people argue that competent individuals can decide for him or herself the terms of his or her own death. In medicine, there is an obligation of the physician to respect their patient’s autonomous decisions. This stronger emphasis on self-determination is recent, but is important because adequate patient information and sufficient understanding of his or her own choice is needed in order to make this autonomous decision (Gather, 447). With PAS, an individual has a right to choose to live or die, and with this decision, the patient can die with dignity. The American Civil Liberties Union determined in Vacco v. Quill, states that U.S. states do not have the right to ban physician-assisted …show more content…

Currently, there are a few resources for terminally ill patients such as palliative care and hospice care; however, patient suffering at the end of life can be reduced with PAS. Those who are terminally ill and face many aggressive forms of treatment may consider PAS an alternative option to palliative care to end their suffering. They might consider PAS as an alternative option to hospice care, because they would rather choose the conditions of their death, rather than prolonging death in another clinical setting. The drugs used for PAS would be less costly than providing end of life care. With PAS, health care costs can be reduced (Kinchoeloe, xiv).
Pain and suffering of a patient’s family can be reduced (McKhann, “A Time to Die).
PAS takes away the guilt of a dying patient of being a burden to the family.
People who are pushing for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide say that there are terminally ill individuals who feel that they emotionally, physically and financially drain members of the family because of their being sick. For some of these people, the best way to remove the guilt they have, it would be best for all if all these hardships will be put to an end through PAS.
Physician-Assisted Suicide has thorough guidelines and regulations (Schafer, “Physician-assisted Suicide: It’s

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One of the main objections to autonomy-based justifications of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) that Gill talks about is that many people believe it does not promote autonomy, but instead is actually taking it away (366). First, it is important to clarify what autonomy means. According to Gill, it is the ability of a person to make big decisions regarding their own life (369). Opponents of PAS argue that it takes away a person’s ability to make these big decisions and so it is intrinsically wrong for them to choose to take their own life.

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In the article “Physician-Assisted Death in the United States: Are the Existing “Last Resorts” Enough?” Timothy Quill, advocated for PAD writes, “Patients who are worried about future suffering and wonder what options would be available to them”(20). One example is, people who undergo surgery for various reasons. Everyone knows that there are risks associated with any surgery and there are those who want to know what options are available to them should they become incapacitated in any way. In the article “The Final Decision; Quadriplegic MP Stevenson Fletcher Champions Physician-Assisted Death”, author Andrew Duffy describes how a young man named Steven Fletcher felt after a car accident left him unable to paralyzed from the neck down.

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Certainly, it is cheaper to give one dose of pills that end a suffering patient’s life than to keep them alive with whatever means physicians must use. As a matter of fact, William E Barlow, PhD (2009) claims that medical care for cancer alone is estimated to have cost the United States 89 billion dollars in 2007 (p. S33). This number would not be so high if we allowed people to have terminal cancer to put an end to their suffering. Again, this only takes cancer into consideration; there are numerous other terminal diseases that lead to nothing but suffering during the last few months of one’s life.

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Numerous legal issues are present in the trials of Dr. Kevorkian. All the issues circulate around the question, is Dr. Kevorkian’s actions in assisting a person with suicide and sometimes personally ending the person’s life considered murder if they want to willfully die? This issue cannot be easily solved, that is why to this day it is still argued in legislation. It contains an objective legal aspect, but a subjective moral, therefore until one is personally in that tragic situation, they cannot really state what is the right or wrong thing to do. A large issue in this case was not only that Dr. Kevorkian was assisting people in committing suicide, which is illegal in the state of Michigan, but he was also using doctor issued medicine and practicing without a medicine license.

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First, Oregon was the front-runner in the world of physician-assisted suicide in the United States. In 1994, the state of Oregon passed the bill of a terminally ill individual’s right to die by lethal injection. Shortly after the passage of the bill, Oregon received their first challenge in the courts. In the case of Lee v. Oregon State, doctors and patients challenged Oregon, stating that the law violated the Constitution’s 1st and 14th amendments, as well as many other federal laws (Devlin, 1996). Due to this challenge in the courts, there was a temporary hold on the law.

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The legalization of PAS under the DWDA influences the nursing profession because it gives patients an alternative option to the usual end of life care, also called hospice or palliative care. However, the American Nurses Association (ANA) position statement regarding PAS and euthanasia states that participation in these acts contradicts the Code for Nurses with Interpretive Statements and is discordant with the principles of the nursing profession as a whole (ANA Center for Ethics and Human Rights, 2013). The most similar alternative is palliative sedation, a practice in which high dose narcotics are administered to keep the patient comfortable; however, this may accelerate the patient’s death as the narcotics suppress the central nervous system

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Though, in this paper, I have addressed several points that Dennis Plaisted has presented on why we should not legalize physician assisted suicide due to the issues with autonomy that convince the public that the state does not care enough to preserve the lives of those with less than six months to live. I argued that the limits of who and when an ill patient may be allowed to receive PAS are present for the state to relieve the pain of the ill who wish to have control over their death, and that it is only an alternative option for those patients. I considered a counterargument to my criticism, which argues that the state and doctors shouldn’t allow for PAS, as it gives the impression that the state does not care about the lives of the terminally ill. Just as well, the reputation of doctors as healers would be compromised if they supported this form of treatment. However, I explained that the quality of life is more valuable than forcing someone who is ill to suffer until their natural death.

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The medical field is filled with opportunities and procedures that are used to help improve a patient’s standard of living and allow them to be as comfortable as possible. Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is a method, if permitted by the government, that can be employed by physicians across the world as a way to ease a patient’s pain and suffering when all else fails. PAS is, “The voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician.”-Medicinenet.com. This procedure would be the patient’s decision and would allow the patient to end their lives in a more peaceful and comfortable way, rather than suffering until the illness takes over completely. Physician assisted suicide should be permitted by the government because it allows patients to end their suffering and to pass with dignity, save their families and the hospital money, and it allows doctors to preserve vital organs to save

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When I was twelve years old, my grandfather passed away after a long, excruciating struggle with lung cancer. He endured months of insufferable agony, which continued until the mercy that came with his dying breath. Looking back on this experience, I am firm in my belief that nobody should have to endure the suffering that my grandfather did. This however, is just one instance in which physician-assisted suicide would have proven beneficial. According to the New York Times, Jerry Brown, who recently signed California’s own assisted suicide law said that if he were ill, it “would be a comfort to consider the options afforded by this bill” (Boffey 1).

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Physician assisted suicide is when a physician provides the means required to commit suicide, including prescribing lethal amounts of harmful drugs to a patient. In the United States alone, there is great controversy about physician assisted suicide. The issue is whether physician assisted suicide is murder or an act of sympathy for the patient. The main point is that terminally ill patients should have a right to physician assisted suicide if it meets their needs and is done properly. Physician assisted suicide is an appropriate action for the terminally ill that want to end their life in peace before it ends at the hands of the terminal disease.

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Death is a natural process that will be experienced by everyone at some point, desirably at the end of a long, well lived life. The reality is that no one knows when that time will come or how it will happen. Unfortunately, for the terminally ill, death is in the near future and it is a sobering reality. Therefore, when that time comes, people need to know that they will have options, and the assurance that death does not have to be an agonizing end. They can choose to endure the annihilating pain that comes with the disease and allow it to take its natural course or choose to put an end to it, surrounded by those who love them.

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Physician assisted suicide has been an intensely debated problem for years but if used properly, could be an effective way to help those who are suffering at the end of their life. Countless people have been advocating for physician assisted suicide for years and the most famous advocate for assisted suicide was Dr. Jack Kevorkian. He was a pathologist but received the nickname Dr. Death after it was estimated that between 1990 and 1999 he assisted 130 terminally ill individuals in their assisted suicides (“Jack Kevorkian”). Dr. Kevorkian is considered a crusader for physician

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A very controversial topic lately is that of euthanasia. Physician assisted suicide is a very debatable ethical issue because people have different morals. I argue that in some cases it is ethical and others it is not. I believe that if someone is going to die, that there is absolutely no cure available that if they want to die via physician assisted suicide that is their choice. One of the main reasons that people chose to die via PAS is because they are in pain and don’t want their families to see them miserable.

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The Right to Die 1) Introduction a) Thesis statement: Physician assisted suicide offers patients a choice of getting out of their pain and misery, presents a way to help those who are already dead mentally because of how much a disease has taken over them, proves to be a great option in many states its legal in, and puts the family at ease knowing their love one is out of pain. i) The use of physician assisted death is used in many different countries and some states. ii) Many people who chose this option are fighting a terminal illness.

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The word “euthanize” means to bring about a person’s death to relieve them from serious distress. The topic of euthanasia in medicine has evolved since intensive care was first instituted. Before the 1950’s, a simple model was used to determine when someone was dead: the individual was dead when his or her heart stopped beating. In the modern light, the answer to this question isn’t as clear. With advancements in organ transplantation and other medical technologies, the stopping of a beating heart is no longer a definite death sentence.

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