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Pros And Cons Of Legalizing Physician Assisted Suicide

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Should Medically Assisted Suicide Be Legalised?
Although medicine in the 21st century has provided people with a variety of illnesses a chance at a “normal” life, there is still a handful of people whose suffering cannot be eradicated. Medically assisted suicide is “when a physician supplies the necessary means and information to facilitate a patient's choice to end his or her life.” [Lydia S. Dugale, Barron H. Lerner and Daniel Callahan, 2019, Pros and Cons of Physician Aid in Dying, PubMed]. In this essay, I will be arguing that medically assisted suicide should not be legalised as it is in direct violation of the Hippocratic Oath, it is a slippery slope where the law could expand to other groups of people and the system can be easily abused by family members.
Medically assisted suicide is a highly controversial topic. Some individuals support the legalisation of M.A.S. They believe that this allows terminally ill patients to retain their dignity and alleviate the patient from the tremendous pain they are in. Essentially, they view M.A.S. as an act of mercy. This is, however, an inaccurate belief. What would be an act of mercy is providing the patient with good …show more content…

The Hippocratic Oath is an oath medical practitioners must make stating “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.” By facilitating a patient in ending their life, practitioners go against this ethical code. The Hippocratic Oath was created in order to protect patients by ensuring doctors uphold the art of medicine and make decisions that are in the patient’s best interest. [Amanda Carpenter, 27 July 2021, What Is the Hippocratic Oath?, study.com] From this proof it is concluded that M.A.S. should not be legalised as it violates The Hippocratic Oath which is the ethical ground on which physicians are supposed to

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