Physician Assisted Suicide Case Study

Introduction
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 ”. Physician assisted suicide is illegal under the terms of the Suicide Act 1961 and is punishable by up to 14 years' imprisonment. However, more than 100 Britons with terminal or incurable illnesses have gone to the Swiss centre Dignitas to die and none of the relatives and friends involved in the cases has been prosecuted. Despite physician assisted suicide being illegal in Britain, in 1997 the US state of Oregon licensed doctors to supply lethal drugs to terminally ill patients who had less than six months to live, and were acting voluntarily. Up to 2013 there

In my opinion it should be considered as much of a crime to make someone live who does not wish to as it is to take life without consent. “Patients have a right to make their own decisions to preserve free choice and human dignity: this right includes the right to choose physician assisted suicide" (Ersek 48). Linked to this quote is the case “PP v Health Service Executive [2014] IECH 622, the High Court, Kearns P, Baker, Costello jj26 December 201426 December 2014.” In this case a patient had a fall in hospital and became unresponsive therefore massively degrading her quality of life. This led to her father agreeing to physician assisted suicide as the patient was unable to make the decision herself due to her condition. This is an example of why physician assisted suicide should be legalised as it allowed the daughter to die with dignity. Furthermore, having access to physician-assisted suicide allows the patient to maintain control over his or her situation and to end life in an ethical and merciful manner. An article called ‘Attitudes of Terminally Ill Patients Toward Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide’ shows the reasons for patients wanting physician assisted suicide, and the main reason as shown is that patients wanted to end their suffering, however there

Before the Suicide Act 1961, it was a crime to commit suicide, and anyone who attempted and failed could be prosecuted and imprisoned, while the families of those who succeeded could also potentially be prosecuted. In part, that criminalization reflected religious and moral objections to suicide as self-murder. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas had formulated the view that whoever deliberately took away the life given to them by their Creator showed the utmost disregard for the will and authority of God and jeopardized their salvation, encouraging the Church to treat suicide as a sin. By the early 1960s, however, the Church of England was re-evaluating its stance on the legality of suicide, and decided that counselling, psychotherapy and suicide prevention intervention before the event took place would be a better solution than criminalisation of what amounted to an act of despair in this context. However the act did not legalise physician assisted suicide and so that practice still remained illegal. This seems ridiculous to me as why should physician assisted suicide not be allowed if normal suicide is allowed, both involve someone who wants to end their life, so it shouldn’t matter how they choose to do it. Many people may be scared to take their own life and would prefer a doctor to do it for them. This is why physician assisted suicide should be