Physician Assisted Suicide Speech

The practice of physician-assisted suicide is not a modern phenomenon. A young woman suffering from cancer became the first person known to die under the law on physician-assisted suicide in the state of Oregon when she took a lethal dose of drugs provided by her doctor in March 1998. The Oregon Death with Dignity Act passed a vote in November 1997, and for the past twenty years it has been a response to the progress of modern medicine. The issue of physician-assisted suicide has been the subject of the heated dispute in current years. Many people worry that legalizing physician-assisted suicide is opening the floodgate to non-critical patient suicides and other abuses and will decrease the value of human life. However, physician-assisted suicide

Just imagine, your grandmother has motor neuron disease. She is no longer able to walk, she can barely swallow or speak, and she is starting to suffer from depression. One day, she finally gathers you and your mother in a room and says “I want to die.” What do you do? What is your reaction? Would you like your grandmother to be at peace and no longer in pain or would you like your grandmother to hurt and suffer through pain she no longer wants to deal with? According to Faye Girsh, “Those with terminal illnesses should be able to die peacefully, gently, quickly, and with certainty—in the arms of people they love. This requires medical assistance.” The suffering felt by terminally ill patients is a greater burden for them to bear than we can imagine. The closer they are to death, the heavier the burden starts to become. Girsh also states a case about an 82-year-old woman with terminal pancreatic cancer named Rose. Rose receives help at home from her hospice nurse. She is hooked up to a machine all day, being pump with heavily sedated medicine that isn’t pleasant at all. Rose knows the end of her battle is near and begs to die. Her children see her suffering and want to help her, but, because aiding her to die is not legal, they can do nothing. Only if Rose could lawfully request that it be stopped and she could die, but she can’t. Unfortunately, her children must listen to their

John Hardwig, a retired philosopher and author, explains that, “When patients survived their initial hospitalization and were discharged, about 1/3 required considerable caregiving from their families, in 20% of cases a family member had to quit work or make some other major lifestyle change, almost 1/3 of these families lost all of their savings, and just under 30% lost a major source of income” (201). Just think about it. Your mother talks to you about requesting physician-assisted suicide after suffering from leukemia because she no longer wants to be a burden and knows chemotherapy is costing you and your family a grip. You insist that she keeps fighting and you’ll worry about the cost later because you still can’t stand the thought to lose her right now. Now it’s been a month or so since she was released from her hospitalization and you receive a bill in the mail stating that you owe $10,000 for the drugs and care she received in the hospital. The only money you have left is your son’s college savings and you have no choice, but to use it. Now your son has lost his chance to go to college because you made the decision to go against your mother’s request based off emotions you had at the time. Hardwig also emphasizes on how the initial caregivers must quit their jobs, which means they are losing a chance