Why Is Assisted Suicide Wrong

Assisted Suicide: Right or Wrong?

Countless people all around the world are living in constant pain and misery. They have been diagnosed with chronic conditions or have suffered severe injuries that they can never fully recover from. Many ethical issues can be raised about this topic, but this paper will focus on only one: assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is a morally right option for people that have completely exhausted their options and can 't bear to live their life anymore.

Assisted suicide can be broken down into two categories: passive euthanasia and active euthanasia. Passive euthanasia is allowing someone to die by not taking steps to prolong their life. It is essentially an act of omission (579). Active euthanasia is "taking a

One final topic that needs to be addressed is the definition of "death". There are four major ways to look at death. One is the traditional version. This defines death as "the permanent cessation of breathing and blood flow," (581). The next is whole brain death. "cessation of all brain functions" (581) is needed for death in this version. Another is higher brain death. This means that the person has a permanent loss of consciousness and will be in an irreversible coma for the rest of their life. The final version is the death of personhood. This occurs when an individual ceases to be a person. In other words, the individual loses the ability to reason, remember, feel, and interact. Many people who would qualify for assisted suicide are already considered dead according to these views on death and would take some of the stigmatism away from the

Following a strict set of rules a patient should be allowed to procure the drugs necessary to end their suffering. These rules should be very through and time consuming so that only the patients that really mean it would be willing to go through all the trouble. Doctors also should have some say in whether or not a patient should be eligible for this drastic option. Physicians also should not be able to inject the drugs themselves only prescribe them to the patient and educate them on how to use them. These rules would be strict enough to keep the patients safe, but also have enough clauses to not ban any specific disease.

Opponents to this topic say that euthanasia is murder and should not be allowed under any circumstances. Murder is when one person kills another, though, and assisted suicide is simply giving a terminally ill patient the means to end their suffering. No one is forcing them to end their life and if they choose they can stop the process at any time by not taking the drugs.

Should prolonging a life take precedence over the quality of that life? If the quality is so low that the individual is in constant pain, can’t take care of themselves, or is having a machine keep their heart and lungs working their suffering should be allowed to be ended. No one should be forced to live life with such severe problems if they choose not to, and assisted suicide is simply a way for them to finally have some