Physician Assisted Suicide

With the legalization of euthanasia, people with disabilities and other vulnerable people such as the elderly would feel encouraged to seek euthanasia as a means to end their medical problems. Although many people are against the legalization of euthanasia, other people believe that the decision to end one’s life is a personal decision and it follows the principle of autonomy. In the medical world, many people believe that it is unethical to violate a patient’s autonomy even if it means that they want to commit suicide. People feel that if a patient is suffering, especially due to a terminal illness, the patient should be able to avoid further suffering by committing suicide earlier on. Many people also believe that physicians assisting someone to commit suicide is the most humane way to pass away compared to other methods in which one commits suicide.

One of the main arguments is that euthanasia could be an ethical issue and can be seen as assisted murder. Physicians are not forced to provide the euthanasia doses; the physicians who do, have agreed to do so. As well as the patient is asking to die, they are not being killed against their will. Another argument is that medical resources and money will be spent for a patient to kill themselves, when they can just commit suicide on their own free will. More medical resources would be spent on keeping that patient alive, than it would euthanize them.

We should have the courage to question our whole social project and remake it, rather than take this final step into darkness" Euthanasia is not harming the human race; it is helping the human race instead. If we just look at the case from different angles, we would probably see how beneficial it is, in this traumatic life. Perhaps life might seem to be hard for us sometimes but there are people out there who really are suffering and desperately need to die. It is the latter prohibitive form that condemns active euthanasia" Although the opponents' statement might be right but in some critical cases, it is does not work. Euthanasia is giving people the rest that they desperately need.

His second argument is that he believes the AMA’s statement shows that choices in life and death situations are determined with inapplicable points. For instance, Dr. Rachels uses the example of how parents will sometimes let their Down’s syndrome infants die when they have a life threatening issue needing a simple operation. The parents will take advantage of that illness as a chance to

Many pro-euthanasia believers will use the autonomy argument and debate the opinion that patients should have the right to choose when and how to they want to die. In an article in the Houston Chronicle, Judge Reinhardt ruled on this topic by stating “a competent, terminally-ill adult, having lived nearly the full measure of his life, has a strong liberty interest in choosing a dignified and humane death… (De La Torre).” However, dignity cannot be measured by the level of pain or the speed in which the individual dies, because it is already a characteristic of a person’s worth as a human being (Middleton). Allowing a patient to live their life to the fullest until the very end is surely a more humane and dignified death then cutting that life short in fear of what it is coming through the practice of euthanasia. While death for these patients can be a sad ending, it does not have to condemn a person to a remaining life of sadness and negativity. In an article for Verily Magazine, Sophie Caldecott described her terminally ill father’s painful yet beautiful last years of

This being said, you should always have that choice to do what you want with your life. The novel accepts the practice of euthanasia but I think it's wrong and is not sympathetic to take a life of an innocent human being. The choice of living or dying should be up to you and nobody else because you should at least have to right to your own body. In the book the old don't really have the choice they grow old, get put into homes, and then get released. I do not think that this is that the practice of euthanasia is compassionate.

The doctor does not have the right to hold information from the patient or their family. In addition, holding information about a diagnostic goes against the principles of being a doctor and looking for the well-being of patients. Patients are the ones that decide how to face the bad news. On the other hand, the doctor should speak with total honesty because it is the patients right to know about their medical status. As every person in this earth, patients have goals and dreams that they want to achieve before their death.

“An assisted dying law would not result in more people dying, but in fewer people living.” This quote by Richard Branson shows the reasons behind assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is an option in certain places that allows patients that are suffering to end their pain through a physicians assisted death. When people have to make an end of life decision, one must take into account the patients suffering, the patient 's quality of life and how much the family suffers while making the decision. The patients should be allowed to have a physicians assisted suicide because of how much the patient suffers. A patient undergoes physical, emotional and psychological pain during treatments.

There have been many controversies on whether euthanasia should be legalized. For example, people have argued for the right to live and the right to die. The term, euthanasia, is sometimes misinterpreted and not thoroughly analyzed by others to be truly understood why its controversies exist. To introduce the term “euthanasia”, euthanasia is when a person feels that their life is not worth living and would like to kill themselves with the assistance of a professional painlessly. Euthanasia does not include stopping a medically “useless” treatment, killing the pain without killing the patient, or, “refusal of medical treatment by a competent patient.” (www.care.org.uk).

Various opinions that are worth thinking and considering exists in the argument of abortion although it is religiously refused, medically unsafe, and irresponsible, some people still regard it as a woman’s right. (procon.org) One of the first reasons I don’t support abortion is that abortion defines the meaning of life and death. Kerby discusses in her article “Arguments against Abortion” medical reasons why abortion should not be legalized, he asked an important question that should have a strict answer within our community, isn’t death declared with a cessation of a heartbeat? Then why doesn’t onset of a heartbeat define life? And if a heartbeat defines life, then abortion should definitely be outlawed.

Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia has been one of the most debated subjects in the past years. There are resilient advocates on both sides of the debate for and against physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. Advocates of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide believe it is a person’s right to die when faced with terminal illness rather than suffer through to an unpleasant demise. Whereas, opponents contend that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is not only equivalent of murder, but it is ethically and morally incorrect. I oppose physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia for various reasons.

It is believed that once practicing physician-assisted suicides becomes an acceptable concept in society, the next steps will easily be taken toward unethical actions such as involuntary euthanasia. Edmund D. Pellegrino, MD, Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Ethics at Georgetown University claims that our healthcare system is too obsessed with costs and principles of utility. He defies the belief that the slippery slope effect is no more than a prediction, by reminding the outlooks and inclinations of our society. Furthermore, he believes there comes a day that incompetent patients and those in coma won’t be asked for their permission to use euthanasia. The Netherlands is another example of such misuse.

His main point is that killing is wrong because it deprives one of their future. He goes on to support this with a few points, one including cancer and AIDS patients fearing their deaths because they know dying is bad for them. The same would go for another species on a different planet, and others on our own. However, he does not believe that euthanasia is wrong, because those that opt for this usually

Delbeke discusses how some people believe assisted suicide should not just be up to physicians to perform. Some people feel that, depending on the task, even nurses, social workers and clergy could perform the suicide. A benefit of this would be less responsibility and burden on the physician, but there are more bad factors. If it starts to become acceptable to let non-physicians perform assisted suicide then more people may become involved than necessary. Delbeke provides information that she thinks assisted suicide would become institutionalized and a certain routine would come about.

Physician assisted suicide is a current controversial issue that has been debated over since the colonial days of the United States. The Oxford dictionary defines assisted suicide as, “the act of killing himself/herself with help of somebody such as a doctor, especially because he/she is suffering from a disease that has no cure.” Although the definition seems like a doctor can put easily put a suffering patient out of their pain and misery by euthanizing the patient, the concept is much more complex than that. Euthanizing and medically assisting a patient to commit suicide are two completely different things. According to The World Federation of Right to Die Societies, “euthanasia usually means that the physician would act directly, for instance by giving a lethal injection, to end a patient’s life.” While physician assisted suicide is described by The American Medical Association as, “a physician facilitates a patient’s death