Assisted suicide goes against all the basic practices of medicine and can negatively affect the doctors or nurses who take a person’s life. Watching a loved one struggling to hang on to their life can be difficult for people to watch. Some people believe that the patient is experiencing extreme pain, however, this is not the case. In reality, skilled doctors can relive the patients from physical pain. Jane St. Clair, a witness of her loved one’s death from cancer, admitted “I watched both my parents and my sister die from cancers … and they did not feel pain”. This means there is no need for fear of physical pain. It gives the patient more time to make a breakthrough in real life because the family will not worry that they are in pain. It may be also good to note that nurses or doctors have the ability to give the patient more advanced drugs because they cannot become addicted to them(Clair). In terms, the family of …show more content…
A nurse’s job is to make the patient feel comfortable and provide a friendly feel, which is difficult to do if hospitals and other medical facilities rely heavily on assisted suicide. According to the ANA, the procedure opposes “the ethical traditions of the profession”(Clair). The doctors are in a quite different situation. When you look in depth at the operation itself, many professionals imply that the doctor “are accessories of fact to homicide”(Clair). That means the doctor is assisting with the homicide because the patient’s death was only possible if the doctor contributed the needed drugs. Laws protect the doctors from possible accusations. This supports the claim that assisted suicide is wrong. Clearly the patient’s life is negatively affected, but now so are the life’s of the nurses and doctors. If no one is benefiting from it, then why should it be considered a medical
Introduction People have moral and ethical values that assist them in making decisions about their healthcare on a daily basis. What if a person found out that they had a terminal illness and only had months to live? What if those few months would be filled with treatments, pain and suffering, tear filled family members, and high cost medical bills? Physician- assisted suicide remains a debated topic which causes physicians, nurses and those involved to take a look at what they value and what they are willing to do in order to carry out a patient’s wishes.
The concept and ideology behind Physician-Assisted Suicide within the contemporary generation has become an exceptionally sensitive and controversial issue as multiple factors conglomerate to define if Physician-Assisted Suicide is justifiable within the grounds of ethical understanding and moral principles. The idea concerning PAS is based on the grounds of rational and irrational thinking as in if death is a rational choice above all other alternatives (Wittwer 420).
Though, in this paper, I have addressed several points that Dennis Plaisted has presented on why we should not legalize physician assisted suicide due to the issues with autonomy that convince the public that the state does not care enough to preserve the lives of those with less than six months to live. I argued that the limits of who and when an ill patient may be allowed to receive PAS are present for the state to relieve the pain of the ill who wish to have control over their death, and that it is only an alternative option for those patients. I considered a counterargument to my criticism, which argues that the state and doctors shouldn’t allow for PAS, as it gives the impression that the state does not care about the lives of the terminally ill. Just as well, the reputation of doctors as healers would be compromised if they supported this form of treatment. However, I explained that the quality of life is more valuable than forcing someone who is ill to suffer until their natural death.
People should be able to live their life to the longest. Physician-assisted suicide is a controversial topic spreading throughout the United States due to the ethical issues surrounding the topic. Physician-assisted suicide is legal in a few states and other states have passed bills to make sure this does not happen. Even though some say that all have a right to die, physician-assisted suicide should not be legal because it would be too psychologically damaging to all involved. Having a right to die is what causes assisted suicide so controversial.
Instead of doctors taking the easy way out, they should work to find a solution to nurse the patient back to health. Physician-assisted suicide is wrong because it is murder, it puts an emotional burden on hospital employees and family members of the patient by taking part in a purposeful death, and it goes against the religious view that
This legislation has faced criticism from persons that warn of abuse, loss of integrity to the profession of medicine, and a lack of respect for the sanctity of life (Starks PhD). Supporters point out that the act of physician assisted suicide is one that happens far more than the general public cares to think about; legislation decriminalizing this act allows the opportunity for transparency ensuring safety checks along the process, autonomy and compassion for the patient, as well as help for mentally ill persons seeking physician assisted suicide (Starks
Physician assisted suicide is by far one of the most controversial topics that has arose in the last decade. As such, there are many moral and ethical arguments both for and against the act of physician assisted suicide. Because of this, it is important to explore in detail the arguments made both in favor and against physician assisted suicide so that one can better grasp what exactly this sort of act entails. In his book “Understanding Assisted Suicide: Nine Issues to Consider”, Seattle University School of Law professor John B. Mitchell highlights many key points of why physician assisted suicide should be legalized.
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”.
Physician Assisted suicide is the act of a doctor helping the patient die because the patient is suffering from an incurable disease and are terminally ill. Unless you are terminally ill this is something you might never understand. Until I started researching more about assisted suicide I never understood really what it was. If a patient is terminally ill I believe that they should have the right to decide whether to end their life or continue. If the patient decides ending their life will help them, it should be the job of the doctor to provide and help the patient die safely and free of as much pain as possible.
Physician assisted suicide is when a physician provides the means required to commit suicide, including prescribing lethal amounts of harmful drugs to a patient. In the United States alone, there is great controversy about physician assisted suicide. The issue is whether physician assisted suicide is murder or an act of sympathy for the patient. The main point is that terminally ill patients should have a right to physician assisted suicide if it meets their needs and is done properly. Physician assisted suicide is an appropriate action for the terminally ill that want to end their life in peace before it ends at the hands of the terminal disease.
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.
What some people think though is that if we set regulations on the doctors, then the Assisted Suicides will be kept to only those who wish for it, but what if the doctors think a patient is better off dead than alive? What if the physician thinks that the patient is not worth saving or keeping alive? One person says “Of all the arguments against voluntary euthanasia, the most influential is the 'slippery slope': once we allow doctors to kill patients, we will not be able to limit the killing to those who want to die”
Many people think that there are too many problems with physician assisted suicide. Physician assisted suicide is a procedure that allows physicians to prescribe their patients a lethal medication that they can inject themselves with in order to die on their own terms. There are specific requirements that the patients must meet in order to receive this medication. Physician assisted suicide is only for patients that have life threatening illnesses and do not have much time left to live. It is legal in numerous places around the world including certain places in the United States.
The medical field is filled with opportunities and procedures that are used to help improve a patient’s standard of living and allow them to be as comfortable as possible. Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is a method, if permitted by the government, that can be employed by physicians across the world as a way to ease a patient’s pain and suffering when all else fails. PAS is, “The voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician.”-Medicinenet.com. This procedure would be the patient’s decision and would allow the patient to end their lives in a more peaceful and comfortable way, rather than suffering until the illness takes over completely. Physician assisted suicide should be permitted by the government because it allows patients to end their suffering and to pass with dignity, save their families and the hospital money, and it allows doctors to preserve vital organs to save
Assisted suicide is a rather controversial issue in contemporary society. When a terminally ill patient formally requests to be euthanized by a board certified physician, an ethical dilemma arises. Can someone ethically end the life of another human being, even if the patient will die in less than six months? Unlike traditional suicide, euthanasia included multiple individuals including the patient, doctor, and witnesses, where each party involved has a set of legal responsibilities. In order to understand this quandary and eventually reach a conclusion, each party involved must have their responsibilities analyzed and the underlying guidelines of moral ethics must be investigated.