Death With Dignity Speech Outline

Racism in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Imagine your mother, sister, wife, or cousin was diagnosed with cervical cancer and you believed the doctors were doing everything in their power to help her. Only later you discovered her cells were used for research without consent and she was not properly informed of the risks of her treatment due to her race. This story happened and is told by Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot use of narrative and her writing style enhances the understanding of the story. Henrietta Lacks was a young black woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital.

Although care options for terminally ill patients are very limited, it is up to the patient and their loved ones to make it their priority to decide which care option is best. While assisted suicide has often came up for debate for the best option with the least amount of pain and suffering, Wesley Smith believes otherwise and has a very different opinion. He believes in giving terminally ill patients the best options that could have less suffering and prolong their life for many more years. He goes up to debate with Arthur Caplan who states that aid in dying should be considered and become a legal practice. Smith goes against Caplan’s argument by stating “we can validly criticize those who, for whatever reason, make it easier or acceptable

the theory is patient-specific because of the patient’s diagnoses and the limited verbal communication. The theory assumptions are helpful with this patient as the nurses make it a priority to interpret cues which reflect his end of life experience and giving prompt intervention to maintain peaceful experience even at his dying moment. The theory was developed be used with terminally ill adult patients and their families/significant others. The theory is not applicable in its totality with non-hospice or palliative care patients. The goal of the end of life care is not to optimize care rather is to provide comfort measures, dignity and peaceful end of life experience.

Halpanny and Newman 1998 wrote: In the final months of her life, Annie Lindsell’s struggle to be allowed to die with dignity became front page news, at the end of October 1997; she won a High Court action that allowed her doctor to administer potentially lethal pain-relieving drugs to prevent her from choking to death. This High Court victory opened up the debate on Euthanasia and the laws surrounding physician’s assisted suicide. Like Annie there are many people lying in our nation’s hospital simply waiting to die, since there are nothing humanly possible that can be done to save their lives. Many of them have a debilitating chronic disease that robs them of the simple tasks such as activities of daily living (bathing, eating, etc.) and ultimately their lives.

As a new person is born something special has begun. It is the beginning of a life, a song, an inspiration, and a story. Kathleen Barber was struggling with a risky cancer and had died in a severe amount of pain and discomfort last December. Her husband, Jason Barber is a journalist and human rights advocate, he knew that his wife could have died a worse death, but also knew that she could’ve died a lot better one also (Barber). This term has various different ways for it to be known and defined, “physician-assisted suicide (PAS), "aid in dying", "death with dignity", "right to die", "compassionate death", "end-of-life choice”, and many different others.

At this point I thought that a doctor would not only work on treating the physical condition of the patient but would have a big role in bringing joy in spite of their hopeless condition. When my relative was diagnosed with alopecia, the doctors were too busy with other patients to treat her. They were so busy that it was hard for us to get an appointment with them. During that time, I wished that there was an assistant to the doctor who could treat my relative and help her get through her toughest moments. That night, I went home and researched about doctors having assistants who can

“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.

My mom told us he was sick and was getting help from doctors. Our family was extremely grateful to find out that he beat cancer and could enjoy the rest of his life. I have also lost my grandpa due to lung cancer. It’s tough seeing someone in so much pain and knowing what they have but not having a clear understanding of what it is or what’s going on inside their bodies. What do I already know about it?

Euthanasia is a debatable topic that has recently gained a lot of attention. It is also referred to as physician assisted suicide. Euthanasia was first created and used for terminally ill patients or patients who live with very painful diseases. It is an option that some terminally-ill patients have considered and in my opinion, an option that every terminally-ill patient should have available to them. Euthanasia enables individuals to make a tough decision, but a decision that should be up to an individual to make; whether a terminally ill individual wants to die should be their decision without an outsider’s input.

According to Bartel and Otlowski (2010), this procedure is defined as ending a person’s life to cease their suffering from fatal condition. The issue on this matter is that life will be taken away in the application of this methodology which makes the procedure immoral. However, according to Emmanuel (1999), euthanasia can provide other advantages. Based on his studies, he said that euthanasia or Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) is beneficial to patients through the alleviation of unremitting and excruciating pain to 25,000 or lower than 2.3 million Americans who die each year. Moreover, euthanasia can also provide psychological assurance.

The doctor’s diagnosis of Robson says that she has an inoperable tumor in her abdomen that will eventually spread to her liver and metastasize, and eventually killing her. The prognosis was that Robson was to undergo many rounds of chemotherapy to try to prevent the spreading of the disease. Robson later finds out about the baffling misdiagnosis of her doctors. She discovers the tumor was not inoperable, not going to be cured by chemotherapy, and not going to metastasize in her liver. Robson then devises a list of legally worded reasons as to why her diagnosis was incorrect.

“Jessica, please go to the principal’s office,” is already scary enough to hear. Seeing my mom sitting up front in tears made it worse. Hearing that my dad had a stroke at the age of 43 was shocking. Understanding that he might need brain surgery made me cry. Just when I thought that was frightening, almost exactly two years later, my dad suffered a second stroke.

On January 29, 1951, an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with Stage 1, Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, after her visit to John Hopkins Hospital. Henrietta began radium treatments which was proven to kill cancer cells and a safer option than surgery, according to her physician Howard Jones. Jones increased Henrietta’s dose of radiation in hopes to decrease the size of the tumors however the treatments were proven ineffective and her skin was burned blacker while the pain grew unbearable until she passed away on October 4, 1951. She left behind her husband David “Day” and five children: Lawrence, Elsie, David Jr, Deborah, and Zakariyya (Joe). This paper will focus on how Henrietta Lack’s and her family’s experience

“Death with Dignity is an end of life option that allows a qualified person to legally request and obtain medications from their physician to end their life in a peaceful, humane, and dignified manner at a time and place of their choosing.” Death with Dignity is administered by the state legislation. Individuals will obtain a prescription and medications for terminating their life but this can only be done it states that have Death with Dignity laws (FAQs, n.d.). Seconal is the main drug of choice when it comes to speeding up a death of an individual who is writhing away or suffering from a terminal disease such as cancer. These individuals who decide to end their life will take Seconal and fall fast asleep with no problems. During the year

Delbeke provides information that she thinks assisted suicide would become institutionalized and a certain routine would come about. She believes that it would be much easier to have a physician do it because they already have all the necessary means of performing the task. The physician could discuss the suicide with a psychologist, a social worker or a clergyman to make sure the patient truly wants the suicide. For now physician assisted suicide still depends on the patients state of health, but a new question arising is whether someone can have assisted suicide if they are just tired of life. If someone is tired of life because they have medical issues, but just not as severe as a terminal illness