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The Pros And Cons Of Physician Assisted Suicide

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Do physicians have a higher moral code than the average person? Will they always do the right thing? Many might say yes, but are physicians not human too? Physician-assisted suicide can promote an end to a patient’s suffering when there is no hope of getting better. While The process of ending life during a terrible suffering can be beneficial, the risks of malpractice can be too great to allow.

The history of physician assisted suicide is a long one filled with many details, history, and much debate. Being that the topic of a physician being able to euthanize a patient has been around since the first practices started. To illustrate this, it says in the Ancient Hippocratic Oath, which states the conduct and obligations of doctors, holds …show more content…

Legalizing the ability for a physician to have the ability to end the life of a patient who has a terminal illness creates too many potential problems. Ending the life of a patient would put the ultimate amount of the trust in doctors to do the right thing, which may not always be the case. We as people trust doctors as we look at them as they know everything and have moral codes that are greater than the average man; this is simply not true. In the Netherlands in 1990 a study was released that “found that of the roughly 3,600 cases of euthanasia and physician assisted dying per year, approximately 1,000 of the instances involved nonvoluntary or involuntary euthanasia” (Standish 2) furthering the point. This happened even with the “regulatory oversight because of the risk for abusing patients”(Van Der Maas 1706)and showed doctors have a way of getting around barriers. If physicians can get around oversight form watchful eyes to still commit 1,000 counts of malpractice than you simply cannot regulate it. The stats do not lie. Not all Physicians cannot be trusted to perform the …show more content…

In a request for Physician assisted suicide the patient not only wishes to die because of the pain, but the scare that they will become a burden to others. Likewise, losing themselves from what they used to be, and are just mentally exhausted from the process of dying. In cases where patients face these challenges “the withdrawal of treatment is appropriate”(Myers 401) because if life feels like a prison, then the government does not have the right to keep them locked up. There are many patients that are in the hospice care program living out the horrible situations as they cannot take care of themselves. For instance, Courtney Campbell notes “nearly 90% of patients who have used Oregon’s ground-breaking “Death with Dignity Act” from 1998-2011 , and over 96% of patients in 2011 were in hospice care”(1). It is understandable why some patients would choose to have this procedure as pain and suffering with no escape can be a great motivator. When a patient has a neurodegenerative disease, they might see it as a better way to go than to live without the full aspect of life. It would be very deteriorating to live in a paralyzed state for the rest of your life as some people do. If you cannot fully live the life you wish for reasons you cannot control then someone else should not have the right to tell you what you can and cannot

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Terminally ill patients do not have the quality of life they used to have instead all of the rest of the time they have is cooped up somewhere's in a bed taking medications and having to deal with the fact that their dying and they do not know how long it could take until all the suffering will end which means the family will have to watch them suffer until their gone. If it was legal the patients would not have to suffer and would give the patient’s family some peace knowing that their not going to suffer anymore. Even before the terminally ill patients get into to much pain they can let their family members know their final wishes and this will give them and their family members peace knowing that their final wishes were taking care of and the patient can choose when they want to die before getting into more pain as time goes

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Physician assisted suicide also known as physician assisted death dates back to the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans. During this time, there was an oath known as the Hippocratic Oath. This oath stated that regardless of circumstances

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Physician-assisted suicide is a widely controversial issue that is discussed in today society. There are debates over whether it is ethically correct or whether assisted suicide should be legalized for the terminally ill. Each side of the arguments have different viewpoints concerning individual aspects of physician-assisted suicide. Such as certain guidelines that should exist if legalized. Advocates of physician-assisted suicide argue that it should be legal under circumstances such as great suffering through terminals illness.

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Physician-assisted suicide, or euthanasia, is defined as “the act or practice of causing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy.” The controversy over euthanasia pits courts, medical professionals, and the ill against questions of reason, laws, and

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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).

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Physician assisted suicide was first introduced to our society in 1997, when the citizens of Oregan voted to legalize this highly controversial practice (Friedman, 2007). At the time, they passed the “Death with Dignity Act, which allowed a terminally ill person meeting certain criteria to end his or her own life with the help of a doctor” (Friedman, 2007). When a patient meets all the requirements needed to undergo physician assisted suicide, he or she will voluntarily take a lethal dosage of medication at their own discretion. According to the 2006 Eight Annual Report on the Death with Dignity Act, only 17 percent of dying patients in Oregan consider physician assisted suicide, but only 2 percent go through with the procedure. Even though

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Doctors control the means, drugs that end life painlessly” (Jaret). Doctors hold the key, to end patients suffering it should be legal for doctors to help patients and patients should also have the right to make a decision that has to do with ending their life. According to Issues and Controversies “The right of a competent, terminally ill person to avoid excruciating pain and embrace a timely and dignified death bears the sanction of history and is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” (“Right to Die”). Patients have the right as citizens to have a say in the way they want to have a death on their own terms. Nobody should be withholding the right to die from a patient who is mentally competent and terminally ill (“Right to

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Physician-assisted Suicide and Ethical Principles The responsibility a physician has to his patients and society is established by medical ethics and is at a greater degree than the law (Sulmasy & Mueller, 2017). The ethical principles, beneficence, autonomy, nonmaleficence, and promotion of fairness and social justice, are the basis for a physician’s duties to his patients. He is a member of a profession with ethical obligations; he is not just a service provider, but a moral advocate. Both medical ethics and the law support the patient’s right to refuse therapy.

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Dr. Phillip Herbert, a physician who has prescribed these lethal medications stated, “When their suffering becomes intolerable, I help them exit this world peacefully.” People who are against physician-assisted death argue that these patients should be placed on hospice and receive palliative care. Most of these patients are already receiving hospice services, medications, and other interventions to cope with their conditions. In Oregon, from 2008 to 2009, 95.1 percent of patients that ended their lives utilizing the Death with Dignity Act were enrolled in hospice care (Campbell).

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Physician-assisted suicide should be legal throughout the United States as a lawful medical procedure for able, terminally ill adults with a limited amount of time, because it is a compassionate response to ease the suffering of dying patients and respect their rights and freedom. Currently, Oregon, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont, and Washington have adopted this policy. It is often offensive to call this suicide, because these patients are physically healthy and are not clinically depressed. “Dying patients who see their lives being destroyed by illness sometimes come to view death as the only way to escape their suffering and, therefore, as a means of self-preservation—the opposite of suicide.” (3) For most of these patients, there are no other options but to wait and stay stagnant in their often poor quality of life.

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Physician-Assisted Suicide Physician-assisted suicide is when a doctor provides the means and the information necessary for a patient to end his life. A bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide was recently signed into law in California, and four other states have also legalized physician-assisted suicide. While many people may say that physician-assisted suicide should not be legal, the fact of the matter is that assisted suicide is a way to end a terminally ill patient’s suffering, and therefore should be legal. All doctors must abide by a very strict code of medical ethics. One of the biggest arguments against physician-assisted suicide is that it violates the Hippocratic oath, which is a code of medical ethics which all new doctors must swear to.

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Physician assisted suicide was first legally in Oregon and now it’s legal in 5 states. In those states that is legal there are current requirements in order to have someone assist you on suicide(State- by -State Guide to Physician-Assisted Suicide). In most states it thought to be an immoral situation and that there should be limits on what a doctor can or can’t do and this is one of them(Cassel,Meier,Diane). Many people say it goes against what a doctor is known for and that’s being a healer(Attitudes of Oregon Psychiatrists toward physician-assisted suicide).Legalizing it would not necessarily mean anyone could take advantage of it.

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Whenever U.S politics considered the question of euthanasia, they consistently stated that it is inadmissible, and legalizing it in our society is inhumane and damaging. In the state of Oregon law on medical suicide (Death with Dignity Act) was adopted in 1994, but only came into effect in November 1997, after fierce litigation over its cancellation. Opponents of the adoption of this law state that it will begin mass pilgrimage of terminally ill people in the world, so far the only place where euthanasia procedure can be carried out in compliance with all legal formalities. Lately in our country there has been talk about suicide when physician assisted. Although some doctors say that medical mediated suicide is a totally different thing, in reality, it's all the same euthanasia, with a difference in process.

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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 patient should have the right to decide whether they want to endorse the pain of their sufferings or they want to end their sufferings with a fast, dignified and compassionate death. The debate of physician assisted suicide is an important topic that concerns all Americans. This topic was first introduced to the US Senate in 1937, but due to lack of progress president Clinton signed Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997. Since then, there have been five states that have legalized the practice of physician assisted suicide, and California is one of them.

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