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Pros And Cons Of Physician Assisted Suicide

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Right or Wrong
Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) is one of the most controversial, ethical issues in our society today. Physician Assisted Suicide is the voluntary termination of one’s own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect help of a physician. Physician Assisted Suicide has its proponents and opponents. Among the opponents are physicians who believe it violates the fundamental principles of medicine. They believe doctors should not aid in suicides because to do so is incompatible with the doctor’s role as a healer. Proponents of assisted suicide agree that patients faced with an inevitable death deserve the right to end their lives on their own term, free of pain and suffering. The two arguments for and …show more content…

Human rights are basic rights and freedoms that all people are entitled to regardless of nationality, sex, ethnicity, race, religion, language or other status. These rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life, liberty and freedom of expression. These rights cannot be taken away except under certain conditions. For example the right to liberty can be restricted if a person is found guilty by the court of law. Human rights consists of both rights and obligations. States maintain the right to assume obligations along with duties under international law to respect, protect and fulfill human rights. The obligation to respect means that states must refrain from interfering with or curtailing the enjoyment of human rights. The obligation to protect requires, States to protect individuals and groups against human rights abuses. The obligation to fulfil means that States take positive action to facilitate the enjoyment of basic human rights. While we are entitled to our human rights we must also respect …show more content…

We now have good home and hospital palliative care programs, effectively able to eliminate or greatly reduce pain and suffering. Making good use of those medical skills is the hospice program, now helping more than a million persons each year receive sensitive care in dying.
Although Callahan presents a good case in detailing these alternatives, he is wrong in the assumption that pain and suffering should be endured by providing terminally ill patients with medication to ease the pain. A person can be in so much pain but may not seek medication which is a short term alternation. They may seek another option to rid the suffering of long term pain. The ill want an effective solution that is much more dignified for them than having to take medication to ease the pain which does not always suit each person the same exact way.
Callahan continues by making a rather peculiar point that assisted suicide is “not a medical concern” by confirming it is about an individual’s set of values regarding autonomy and self-control in their dying. Uncontrolled pain and death however will always be considered a medical problem. The patient is never going to be fully satisfied until you provide them with the approximate amount of care and choice needed for them to feel in control of their own decisions regarding their own life. If death was not an important medical concern then why are their many patients who feel that they have to commit

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“The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how well life gets again after the hell is over.” People are unable to realize how their situation can be resolved better than having to kill themselves. Terminally ill patients are notorious for taking their lives before they can realize the mistake they are making. They believe that it is best for their situation, however, there are multiple reasons for why they should reconsider their actions before something terrible happens. Doctor assisted suicides should not be allowed because of the effects it has on the deceased loved ones and how more terminally ill patients are overcoming their disabilities.

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Gill argues that keeping a person healthy cannot be a physician’s only moral duty because in cases of terminal ill patients, they can no longer be treated or healed (372). If a physician’s only duty were to heal patients then they would not tend to the terminally ill because there would be nothing else that they could do, which is something that most people would find to be morally wrong (Gill, 373). No one would be okay with a doctor not helping a person at all who has received a terminal sentence. So instead of promoting health in this case, the physicians must find a way to reduce the suffering of the patient. This means that the physician should be able to reduce the suffering in the way that the patient asks for.

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The concept and ideology behind Physician-Assisted Suicide within the contemporary generation has become an exceptionally sensitive and controversial issue as multiple factors conglomerate to define if Physician-Assisted Suicide is justifiable within the grounds of ethical understanding and moral principles. The idea concerning PAS is based on the grounds of rational and irrational thinking as in if death is a rational choice above all other alternatives (Wittwer 420).

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In current society a debate on a controversial topic is rocking the nation. The debate of the Right to Die has been put back on the spotlight after an advocate for the cause made the choice to end her own life after being diagnosed with a terminal disease. The Right to Die is a campaign which supports every individual's choice to die when faced with a terminal disease. A specific form is called Physician Assisted Suicide which was the way the advocate chose to die. A Physician Assisted Suicide is when a physician prescribes a competent patient a lethal dose of drugs so he/she may use to intentionally end their own life whenever they see fit.

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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.”

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They may believe that neither the state nor willing physicians should condone the desire for someone to take their own life unnaturally in the first place. Plaisted explains such ideas in his article, such as that society may fear the state caring less about your life if they allow you to go through with killing yourself with the help of a physician. Though they may be terminal, a person with less than six months to live is not dead yet (Plaisted 210). The life of a terminally ill patient may not be ideal, but it should be in the interest of the state to preserve the lives of its people. They may suggest for state to put its focus into funding research for new medicines, towards better hospice care, and for more resources to make the patient as comfortable as possible until their natural death.

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The medical field is filled with opportunities and procedures that are used to help improve a patient’s standard of living and allow them to be as comfortable as possible. Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is a method, if permitted by the government, that can be employed by physicians across the world as a way to ease a patient’s pain and suffering when all else fails. 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.”-Medicinenet.com. This procedure would be the patient’s decision and would allow the patient to end their lives in a more peaceful and comfortable way, rather than suffering until the illness takes over completely. Physician assisted suicide should be permitted by the government because it allows patients to end their suffering and to pass with dignity, save their families and the hospital money, and it allows doctors to preserve vital organs to save

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What is a patient to do if they are ready to pass, but their body is not (but will be soon)? This puts the patient in a dangerous mental state and has the potential to push the patient to suicide by other means. Yes, in theory suicide is suicide, but an at home suicide of hanging or cutting themselves, etc. is going to be much more traumatic to all involved (family, friends, patient). What happens if the suicide fails, and now you have a patient that clearly does not want to live, have to live through the ramifications of what they have done? Physician assisted suicide is not a quick, easy or spur of the moment choice.

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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.

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Physician-assisted suicide is the voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. They provide a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary

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Families may also take selfish actions by not wanting to continue paying the medical costs to keep the person alive because that money they are spending would eventually become their inheritance. Families and doctors may also feel regret from the assisted death because they may have been able to live through the disease or illness. An example from one of Dr. Jack Kevorkian's patients proved that a wrong diagnosis could make the use of euthanasia a huge mistake. One of his patients had “committed suicide” with his assistance, because she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. It was later discovered after an autopsy was completed on the patient, that she in fact did not have Multiple Sclerosis and if she would have had a second opinion done, she most likely would have made a completely different choice in dealing with her issue.

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Doctors should have responsibility of helping the ill patients to get better physically. Physicians are the icon of peace and generous within the society since their job is to solve the physical pain of the patients. In allowing physician-assisted suicide, the duty of physicians is misread. Society and law are saying that physician’s duty is no longer helping patients, but they can also easily put an end to patient’s life. In the New York Times article “Doctor-Assisted Suicide Is Unethical and Dangerous”, Ira Byock states, “people who are poor, or old and frail, or simply have long-standing disabilities, may worry that when they become acutely ill, doctors might see their lives as not worth living and compassionately act to end their supposed misery”.

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A very controversial topic lately is that of euthanasia. Physician assisted suicide is a very debatable ethical issue because people have different morals. I argue that in some cases it is ethical and others it is not. I believe that if someone is going to die, that there is absolutely no cure available that if they want to die via physician assisted suicide that is their choice. One of the main reasons that people chose to die via PAS is because they are in pain and don’t want their families to see them miserable.

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Assisted suicide is a rather controversial issue in contemporary society. When a terminally ill patient formally requests to be euthanized by a board certified physician, an ethical dilemma arises. Can someone ethically end the life of another human being, even if the patient will die in less than six months? Unlike traditional suicide, euthanasia included multiple individuals including the patient, doctor, and witnesses, where each party involved has a set of legal responsibilities. In order to understand this quandary and eventually reach a conclusion, each party involved must have their responsibilities analyzed and the underlying guidelines of moral ethics must be investigated.

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Patients have the right to the kind of treatment they want. 3) Conclusion a) Physician assisted suicide can help treat the terminally ill how they would like to be treated. b) The long history of assisted suicide speaks for itself in the matter of if it should be legal or

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