Pros And Cons Of Legalizing Physician Assisted Suicide

One definition for physician assisted suicide is when a patient’s death is facilitated by a physician, who will enable the patient to perform a life-ending act through the supply of the necessary means or information. The very first initiative to legalize physician assisted suicide was in 1991, appearing on the ballot in Washington state. However, this attempt failed with voters turning it down by a slim margin. Then, after a lengthy legal process, physician assisted suicide was finally first legalized in Washington state in June of 1997. And to this day, only 9 states (Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Colorado, New Jersey, Vermont, and Maine) plus Washington DC have legalized physician assisted suicide, with 1 state (Montana)

An example of how important ethics is in the healthcare profession is the Hippocratic oath that all physicians swear to before they start practicing and do their best to adhere to throughout their careers. The Hippocratic oath is an ethical principle that the Greek physician, Hippocrates employed during his practice as a physician. In simple terms, the oath states that a good physician practices ethics through beneficial treatment of patients, passing on of medical knowledge, and establishing doctor-patient confidentiality. Also included in the oath is the promise not to intentionally harm patients; and this is where both arguments for and against physician assisted suicide become ethically complicated and extremely

For instance, from a mental health perspective. To understand the mental health perspective of physician assisted suicide, it is important to understand how suicidal behaviors in the psychiatric and general community can correlate to those behaviors in the terminally ill as well. It is also important to understand the relationships between doctors and patients from the perspective of a mental health professional. This way it is possible to look past the basic, simplified assumptions about physician assisted suicide; that a terminally ill patient’s decision for suicide is only a response to the pain and suffering caused by the illness without any other factors. And the best way to be able to look past the oversimplification of physician assisted suicide is to take into account the fact that there is no one single factor in suicidal people that causes suicide. From a mental health perspective, most suicides are committed by those with psychiatric illnesses, but only a minimal minority of those with psychiatric illnesses are also suicidal. Therefore, the conclusion can be drawn that, there are more factors than just the terminal illness itself that leads to the decision to move forward with physician assisted suicide. Furthermore, a very significantly large majority of terminally ill patients would choose to allow the disease to take its natural