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The Pros And Cons Of Physician Assisted Suicide

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Imagine laying in a hospital bed, suffering in extreme pain, and wanting just be put out of misery. Imagine only having 1 more month to live and not being able to eat or walk again. Having a terminal illness takes away the quality of life, and a patient that is terminally ill is just suffering. Although assisted suicide may be considered inhumane, assisted suicide should be legal for terminally ill patients in the United States. Historically, assisted suicide was not legal anywhere in the United States, but recently more states are making it legal. According to the different states, assisted suicide is currently legal in Oregon, Washington, and montana. Hawaii, Pennsylvania, and Vermont are also considering allowing the law for physician assisted suicide to become legal in their state (Gordon). Before assisted suicide was a made a law, it was completely illegal for a physician to prescribe a lethal pill to a patient, but as of now, Oregon, Washington, and Montana are the places in the United States that do allow physician assisted suicide. Many other states like Hawaii, Pennsylvania, and Vermont are also considering making assisted suicide …show more content…

People that are terminally ill are usually in a great amount of pain. Many people are suffering so bad that they would rather die than be kept alive only to be in unbearable pain. People have rights, and should be able to choose whether or not to live the rest of life in pain, or be put out of their misery and end their suffering. Many people who are struggling with debilitating and terminal illness must deal with excruciating and unrelenting pain, as well as the loss of autonomy and the ability to care for themselves. Outside assistance and pain medication may not be enough to mitigate their suffering, and such individuals often feel that their life is not bearable under such conditions

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Should patients with non-standard reasons such as non-terminal conditions (i.e. pain, disability, depression, free choice and etc.) have the right to end their own lives with physician-assisted suicide? Physician-assisted suicide is a highly emotional and controversial ethical debate on whether patients have rights to end their lives with the lethal drug. A physician-assisted suicide is when a doctor helps a patient who is dying with the aid or instructions on how to commit life-ending acts (Gopal, 2015). In the United States there are five states (i.e. Oregon, Vermont, California, Colorado, Washington and Washington, DC) that legalized physician-assisted suicide but in one state (i.e. Montana) status is in dispute. Five states require an approval upon legislation whereas one state needs approval through a court ruling.

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The patients who suffer from these conditions tend to lose their dignity in the process, and in culmination with the constast pain, develop a desire to control how they handle their lives and future medical

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As A.C. Grayling puts it in her article, It Is Compassionate to Permit Assisted Suicide, “To believe that mere length of existence, however unbearable and painful, trumps the kindness of granting someone's request for help to end their suffering easily and quickly, is to have one's priorities utterly wrong.” It is not the quantity of time at the end of a person’s life that counts, it is the quality. Even in the medical community there is debate over physician assisted suicide. Many doctors point to the Hippocratic Oath, and “Do no harm.”

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By viewing both sides, physician assisted suicide is beneficial to patients and their families. Physician assisted suicide is very widely known. PAS is legal in five states; Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana and California. Oregon was the first state to pass PAS by law on November 4, 1994.

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1049 Words | 5 Pages

Physician assisted suicide has been a controversial topic in the medical world for centuries. Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is the act in which a doctor provides their terminally ill patients with the knowledge and means to commit suicide. Doctors must inform their patients on the lethal drugs that may be used and the process of the suicide. Physician assisted suicide has been legalized in a few states throughout the United States including Oregon, Montana, Vermont, Washington, and Bernalillo County in New Mexico. Although many families and doctors agree with the idea of physician assisted suicide, even more people disagree with “mercy killing” because it exploits the doctor's hippocratic oath and may violate the constitution.

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End of Life Action Acts/, are Oregon (1994), Washington (2008), Montana (2009), Vermont (2013), California (2015), Colorado (2016), and Washington D.C. (2016). There are many regulations and rules that the patients have to participate and meet the criteria for to even be considered for assisted suicide. Even through all these hardships, the patients are still undergoing a terrible disease that, for all states (except Montana), has to be a determined death within 6 months. The patients only wish to for someone to alleviate them of the pain and suffering they going through.

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As American citizens, we are guaranteed certain unalienable rights, stated in the Declaration of Independence, “[w]e hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson). Still thousands of terminally ill patients are being denied these rights as they discuss end of life care. Physicians assisted suicide involves management of life, the accomplishment of liberty from crippling diseases, and the pursuit of happiness to remove current suffering. Physician assisted suicide should be legalized around the country as an option for terminally ill patients to calmly end their life of

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Despite all of this back-and-forth, it has ultimately been decided to allow the states to choose for themselves on this topic, which is similar to the death penalty. Being able to decide state-by-state is only because the founding fathers never addressed anything about it in the Constitution, and the Supreme Court ruled no precedent on it. Moreover, the other structural issue of assisted suicide can be tied back to a Special Interest Bias. Extremely polarizing viewpoints between citizens and the government has left physician-assisted suicide in shambles for decades now, without any definitive answers being agreed upon. Those who are involved in the “Right to Die” movement only focus on legalizing PAS, and their main argument is that they should have the right to choose when they die.

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Wouldn't you want a way out? With physician-assisted suicide, you could finally have a way out of your never ending pain. Physician-assisted suicide should be legal for terminally-ill patients. Physician-assisted suicide is defined by the voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. A physician will prescribe the treatment and either preform the treatment themselves (Euthanasia) or have the patient preform the treatment.

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Most of the states that allow physician assisted suicide to

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However, there are a few European countries that have legalized assisted suicide. They are Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland and England and Wales. In America, physician-assisted suicide is illegal in all states except for Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana (Moody, 2015, p. 278), and California (NPR, 2015). Oregon was the first U.S. state in which assisted suicide was legally permitted. In recent years, American’s the inclination towards physician-assisted suicide is increasing.

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1994 Words | 8 Pages

In The United States of America, only six states have physician-assisted suicide (PAS) legalized. California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Washington D.C. have physician-assisted suicide legalized via legislation. However, the state of Montana has physician-assisted suicide legal via court ruling only. Physician-assisted suicide has been a popular topic recently due to Brittany Maynard, who had to move from California, which did not have physician-assisted suicide legal at the time, to the state of Oregon, where it was legal. She moved because she had brain cancer, and wanted to end her life peacefully at home, surrounded by family, instead of dying slowly in a hospital.

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Physician assisted suicide is a viable option for terminally ill people who have the support of family. Therefor it should be legal in all 50 states. Euthanasia is similar to physician assisted suicide the only difference is that euthanasia is legal in all 50 states and physician assisted suicide is not. Assisted suicide is the doctor accommodating that person with death (“Euthanasia”). The doctor provides a drug for the patient for them to die.

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“Assisted Suicide will discriminate against the old, the ill, and the disabled” (Diane Coreman). Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) should not be legal in any state or country. PAS allows ‘Mature Minors’ to end their lives if their mental illness is “Unbearable” or “Untreatable”. There is always help, and suicide should not be the main option we give the adolescents of our world. Cleary PAS will discriminate against the people who have suffered or are suffering that won't qualify for help of suicide.

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1376 Words | 6 Pages

Physician assisted suicide is when a person can choose to die on their own free will. The doctor helps the person administer life-ending medication. This is legally used in California, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Colorado, and Montana. Not only is it widely used throughout the world there are still laws on it like the Death with Dignity Act. While physician assisted suicide and euthanasia is a topic greatly debated around the world, it should be legal in all states because it is a human right to die on their own terms.

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