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Physician Assisted Suicide Ethical Issues

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Dennis Mmasa Hakyoung Ahn English 104 18 November 2015 Dr.Jack Kervokian as many know him as “Dr.Suicide” died in 2011. He was well known for being the first physician to advocate for Physician Assisted Suicide. He helped hundreds of patients with terminal diseases end their lives. His effort to advocate for this led the state of Oregon to pass the Death with dignity act which would legally allow patient to go through with this procedure. This procedure has caused many concerns about the ethical rights of this procedure. Physician Assisted suicide is an ethical way to end one’s live because the patients are informed about the steps of the procedure, saving patients the pain and the money associated with the sickness and gives the families …show more content…

To protect the citizens hospices have different way of handling patients who ask for Physician Assisted Suicide. Jessica Cox author of “Hospice and Physician Assisted Death,” performed a study in the entire state of Oregon in 2009 and found out that participation in hospices in physician assisted suicide can be categorized into four general groups. The first group is the one that participate fully by providing information to the patients attending physician but hospice staff is prohibited from administering the medication to the patient. The second group usually gives out moderate participation; they give information about Physician Assisted Suicide and tell the patients to contact their attending physicians, however the staff is required to tell the patient to search for additional information on their own. The third group gives out limited participation; they refer the patient to the doctors and expect the doctor to explain all the details about the procedure. They however do not just abandon their patients, they still take care of them. The fourth and final group gives no participation, this hospices does not provide any information about Physician Assisted Suicide to the patient because they believe it is not the best option to deal with their situation. (Cambell). However all these groups of hospices never directly help the patients with Physician Assisted Suicide. The removes the side saying that the patients were pressured by the hospices to choose that given

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