ipl-logo

Pros And Cons Of Physician Assisted Suicide

764 Words4 Pages

Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is the process by which a physician facilitates a patient’s death by providing them with the necessary means and information to end their lives. The debate to legalize physician-assisted suicide has been ongoing for many years. In the U.S only four states have legalized PAS: Oregon, Montana, Vermont, and Washington. The purpose of PAS is to end a person’s life that is suffering from an illness that will impair the way in which they live their lives. The debate of physician-assisted suicide began in the year 1997, when the U.S Supreme Court recognized no constitutional right to PAS and allowed state legislatures to make decisions for themselves. The first decision was made in the court decision of Compassion …show more content…

Ms. Rodriguez had been suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and was told by her physician that she would live anywhere from two to fourteen months. She would soon lose her ability to speak, walk, swallow, and move her body, confining her to a bed. Sue Rodriguez sought an order to end her life by her choosing when the time was right. The case of Ms. Rodriguez was similar to other patients at the time. Many patients who are terminally ill seek to end their lives for specific reasons. The pain and suffering associated with terminal illnesses takes a toll on patients. Individuals do not want to be a burden to their families and want to end their lives due to the pain they are going through. Knowing that their lives will soon come to an end, the patients request proper instructions from their doctors to end their lives. Oregon, one of the first states to legalize assisted suicide has had 340 cases of PAS. There has not been a surge of people moving into Oregon to end their lives and not many states have followed in Oregon’s footsteps. Doctors granted one in six requests for lethal prescriptions, and only one in 10 requests resulted in death, according to a survey of more than 2,600 Oregon physicians in the Feb. 24, 2000, New England Journal of Medicine. Of the 221 requests in the survey, 21% were denied because patients had symptoms of depression. Oregon’s policy for assisted suicide provides a careful way in which PAS can be implemented across the

Show More
Related
1841 Words | 8 Pages

Since Oregon began allowing physician-assisted suicide of the terminally ill in 1997, more than seven hundred people have ended their own lives with prescription medications in the state alone (NPR.org). Physician-assisted suicide is not only becoming a topic of controversy in the United States, but foreign countries as well. Supporters of the issue believe that competent people who do not have a chance of longevity should be able to choose their fate. Opponents argue that terminal diagnoses can be inaccurate, or that the person with the illness may not be capable of making informed decisions. Assisted suicide refers to the act of one giving another the “Instructions, means, or capability to bring about their own demise.”

Read More
1026 Words | 5 Pages

Physician- assisted suicide is the practice of providing terminally ill patients a prescription for medication to use with the intention of ending his or her life. According to the article “What’s Really Involved in Physician-Assisted Death?” pain was not the main reason patients made the request of physician-assisted suicide but ratherm loss of autonomy and dignity, inability to enjoy life and regular activities and other types of mental distress were the dominant motivations, the study found. Physician- assisted suicide should be legal for terminally ill patients. The patient’s family will not have to suffer and want have to watch the patients suffer for so long. Before starting physician- assisted suicide, it is made sure of that this is what the patient truly wants.

Read More
1976 Words | 8 Pages

" Physician Assisted Suicide: An Unbiased Review." PDF. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016. .

Read More
689 Words | 3 Pages

Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is a term used to describe the practice of a physician assisting a terminally ill patient in ending their life. This process is usually accomplished by the physician prescribing a lethal dose of medication that the patient will self-administer. The act of physicians assisting terminally ill patients in taking their own lives have been the focus of many heated debates throughout our nation’s history. In fact, the Hippocratic Oath states, “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan.”

Read More
417 Words | 2 Pages

Although, this practice has been deemed as, “…there is no constitutional right to commit suicide, with or without assistance” by the Supreme Court under the case “People v. Kevorkian” (2). Several states such as Oregon have adopted a policy of PAD, which then in turn allows patients, under a specific set of circumstances, to end their lives as they please, and in doing so relinquishing themselves from a world of demise and agonizing torture. In the state of Oregon a patient must be, “Terminally ill, have six months or less to live, make two oral requests for assistance in dying…” and much more (8).

Read More
649 Words | 3 Pages

Should physician assisted suicide (PAS) be legal? This has been a debate. Many people may have not even heard about it or really given any thought. Per MedicineNet.com (2012) PAS is the voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. I would approve for this to be legal.

Read More
1448 Words | 6 Pages

Physician assisted suicide is the ending of a person’s life on his or her own terms. Despite moral stigmas that argue against this right, assisted suicide has already become legal in several states. In the states where this is legal, several criteria must be met to qualify for physician assisted suicide. When treatment and suffering is not prolonged, physician assisted suicide would help the family and friends emotionally and financially. Legalizing physician assisted suicide, would ease the hardships of everyone involved and would protect the dignity of the person while also lessening their suffering and pain.

Read More
2076 Words | 9 Pages

Physician assisted death, more commonly known as physician assisted suicide, is the act of intentionally killing oneself through the use of drugs prescribed by a doctor. Something that is similar to physician assisted death is euthanasia, which is illegal in the United States, but legal in other countries. I feel that physician assisted death should be legalized in all fifty states because it is a person ’s right to choose, a way to end their suffering, and way for terminally ill patients to end their life with respect and dignity. Jack Kevorkian was a physician in Michigan who supported a patient’s wish for assisted suicide.

Read More
1363 Words | 6 Pages

Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Choice “Does a man, in addition to the right to live, have a right to die? More specifically, does he have a right to a dignified death?” (Banović, Turanjanin, & Miloradović, 2017). These questions are the main reason why Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) has been such a long-standing controversial issue.

Read More
1290 Words | 6 Pages

Physician assisted suicide is one of the most complex and critical health care policy issues that doctors and nurses must face and either advocate for or against. What makes it difficult is determining whether or not the patient’s condition is poor enough to be considered eligible for this type of treatment. In 1990, Dr. Jack Kevorkian started a movement of taking this practice forward himself and helping multiple people do what they wanted with their life. Physician assisted suicide (PAS) can be a respectful way for people to be let free of their misery if done at the request of the patient. PAS can be seen as a negative act that doctors and nurses have the power to over use.

Read More
734 Words | 3 Pages

Doctor-assisted suicide is a controversial topic but what people fail to realize is the real facts of it. Physician-assisted suicide, also known as euthanasia, is quite self-explanatory; it is when a terminally ill person has the physician's help to die. It is not legal in all fifty states, and it should be. It is a hard decision to make and can prevent not the suffering of the sick lives, but the family's life, too. Doctor-assisted suicide should be legal, so terminally ill people can end their suffering, to help end their family’s suffering, and a doctor's job is to take care of their patients.

Read More
1550 Words | 7 Pages

Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is a very controversial topic in both the medical community and elsewhere. Physician assisted suicide is defined by the McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine (2002) as the “voluntary termination of one’s life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. In most US cases, a physician gives a terminally ill patient a prescription for a lethal medication, and the patient takes the medication in their own home with no physician present, at the time of their choosing. In PAS, the physician plays a passive role in the patient’s death, prescribing the lethal medication but not administering it. PAS is different from euthanasia in that euthanasia requires the physician to take a more active role, and that euthanasia is illegal across the US.

Read More
1385 Words | 6 Pages

Legalization of physician-assisted suicide has been in discussion throughout the years in the United States. While many state and federal lawmakers have this up in discussion, the state of Oregon is the only U.S state were physician-assisted suicide is legal. Not only is assisted suicide illegal, the use of euthanasia is also an illegal substance being prescribed to patients. There are four distinguished types of euthanasia, all with different meanings that are mentioned later on in the text. Over the last forty years and counting, Pakes had informed that the views of physician-assisted suicide have been changing, and it is still ongoing today.

Read More
1141 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
937 Words | 4 Pages

As with Oregon, Washington “residents must understand the treatment and the comforting care that is available for them.” (Introduction to The Right to Die: At Issue). Although the choice of assisted suicide has been available for some time, participation in the program hasn’t been staggering. In fact, doctors are writing more prescriptions for the lethal medication than there are people taking the medicine. In Washington there are “50,000 deaths a year and cancer is the second leading cause of death.

Read More

More about Pros And Cons Of Physician Assisted Suicide

Related Topics

Open Document