Essay On Physician Assisted Suicide

The first of many reasons that physician assisted suicide should be legalized across the whole nation is the fact that it is an option that is covered by many safeguards that ensure that the patients who receive the deadly prescription are those who are, in fact, terminally ill. One such example of these safeguards comes from the Oregon Death With Dignity Act which states: “Requests for [Death With Dignity Act] drugs must be confirmed by two witnesses and approved by two doctors. The patient must not be mentally ill. And most important of all, both doctors must agree that the patient has no more that six months to live.” (Drum). This list of safeguards on the Oregon law creates an environment in which patients must be double checked by two

The number of deaths touching the thousands place is by no means a small amount for one state, but these statistics have been collected over a period of almost twenty years meaning that for each year there have been only eighty-two prescriptions per year, and only fifty-two of those eighty-two actually take the final step and ingest the drug that they were prescribed. The truth is that these regulations that place a limit on who can receive these prescriptions is one of the strongest cases for why physician assisted suicide should be legalized, and a prime example of this comes from the state of California: “It also helped that [California’s bill] had a list of safeguards even longer than Oregon’s.”