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The Pros And Cons Of Physician Assisted Suicide

846 Words4 Pages

Magen DeWitt
Mr. Harrell
English 1
June 5, 2018
The Right to Die in the Modern World

"One of us suggested maybe he'd like to have one last smoke. So, I got him his tobacco and his pipe, and he enjoyed that. And then he indicated that it was time. He took the gun. He loaded it. And with the aid of his walker, we walked out to the garden. He chose a spot and decided he would lie down. So, we said our goodbyes."This is the cruel reality terminally ill patients live because they are incapable of choosing their own death. Physician Assisted Suicide is the intentional and voluntary end of one's life aided by a medical professional and is one of the most controversial moral debates in America today. PAS should be legal because it should be …show more content…

The earliest version of this oath forbids all doctors to provide deadly medication to any patient who asks. (Do Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide Violate the Hippocratic Oath?) This version also forbids abortion which presently is a familiar practice in most places. This was the earliest version of the Hippocratic Oath, but the modified version revised the statement from “giving no deadly dose of medicine to your patients” to “do no harm.” This change allows doctors to perform PAS without violating the oath because any patient that suggests this treatment is in severe pain or wants to prevent it. By evading their wishes, it would cause harm and would only injure them …show more content…

If the individual shows these five characteristics then they will they be a candidate for PAS, and these five criteria are "the ability to reason, realistic world view, adequacy of information, avoidance of harm and accordance with fundamental interests."(Battin 132).An unethical and irrational death would be unpermitted under these parameters. These criteria help doctors and patients discover if PAS is for them. All these criteria show that the patient is sane enough to determine how they claim their life. Another noteworthy fact is the candidate must be completely certain of their decision and gives oral and written consent 15 days apart and at least 3 weeks before they plan to end their life. PAS should be legal because in the eight states it is legal in, they have set up laws so that the patients cannot abuse PAS. These states know it is the individual's right to choose if they are capable of doing

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