Physician Assisted Suicide Rhetorical Analysis

Is physician-assisted suicide really something that should be considered in the United States or even the world? No matter what your opinion is, Katherine Jean Lopez makes a compelling argument about why it shouldn’t even be considered. Her article Rejecting the Culture of Suicide can make even the most stubborn reader listen to what she has to say about physician-assisted suicide. With her use of ethos, pathos, and logos, Lopez is able to tug at the heartstrings of any reader as well as inform each one about the negative effects of suicide. In this essay I will explore the ways Lopez turns the article into a melting pot of facts, opinions, and real life stories in order to convince the readers that physician-assisted suicide should be illegal everywhere. I argue that the techniques that Lopez used throughout the article created a strong argument that could very likely change the minds of many people in the world that support such an unethical act.

Katherine Jean Lopez starts this article with an excerpt from a letter that a girl dying of cancer writes to another girl with cancer that wants to end her life with physicians-assisted

The kind of argument that this article utilizes is a causal argument. One clear argument in this article is the fact that allowing physician-assisted suicide will lead to more suicides in the country which is scary because Lopez states that “suicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults and the tenth leading cause of death overall for individuals over the age of 10.” She also mentions a quote from Dr. Kheriaty where he states that allowing assisted suicide “sends a message that some lives are not worth living” (Lopez). The use of these facts make this causal argument very hard to disagree with as a reader because the supporting evidence of her claim work as pillars that keep this argument