The Importance Of The Constitution's Amendments

When I was twelve years old, my grandfather passed away after a long, excruciating struggle with lung cancer. He endured months of insufferable agony, which continued until the mercy that came with his dying breath. Looking back on this experience, I am firm in my belief that nobody should have to endure the suffering that my grandfather did. This however, is just one instance in which physician-assisted suicide would have proven beneficial. According to the New York Times, Jerry Brown, who recently signed California’s own assisted suicide law said that if he were ill, it “would be a comfort to consider the options afforded by this bill” (Boffey 1). The intent of this bill is to allow terminally ill patients to make decisions about their own health care, and to further increase the personal liberties of

iii) Euthanasia contains a much smaller chance for mistakes and may be necessary in cases where a patient is too sick for self-administration.

The dying patient no longer has quality of life, they have lost their independence, are lonely, are forced to endure inevitable pain, are publicly humiliated, are suffering immensely, and are forced to watch their loved ones grieve because of them. It is an innate Constitutional Right to choose how to die, since we all will die. There comes a point when the poking and prodding becomes too much, when the patient wants to just die in silence in the loving arms of their

In the defense of Physician Assisted Suicide, a wide publicly talked about topic, it should be a choice every terminally ill patient receives. Physician Assisted suicide is when a patient is terminally ill and has no chances of recovering. The patient themselves can make the decision, with the help from their physician, to get lethally injected and end their life reducing and ending the pain. In America each state has a little over 3,000 patients that are terminally ill contact an advocacy group known as the Compassion and Choices to try to reduce end-of- life suffering and perhaps hasten their death. Physician Assisted Suicide shouldn’t be looked at as suicide, but as ending the pain and suffering from an individual whose life is going to be taken away anyway. In the United States there are six states that have their own modifications on allowing Physician Assisted Suicide. Oregon became the first state to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill, mentally competent adults in 1994, followed by Washington and Vermont. California was then the fifth state to sign the “Right to Die” bill legalizing Physician Assisted Suicide. Many

The Death with Dignity Act has two arguments: those who believe we have the right to choose how and when we die, and those who believe we do not possess that right; that we should not interfere with the natural order of life. Every year, people across America are diagnosed with a terminal illness. For some people there is time: time to hope for a cure, time to fight the disease, time to pray for a miracle. For others however, there is very little or no time. For these patients, their death is rapidly approaching and for the vast majority of them, it will be a slow and agonizing experience. However, there is hope of a peaceful death for these patients that exists in a controversial law being considered by many states throughout the country. It is known as the Death with Dignity Act. This law gives terminally ill patients the option of ending their own life in a painless manner at a time and place of their choosing by

Physician assisted suicide, although legal in some states, should remain illegal because it goes against religious and moral beliefs. “In physician assisted suicide, the physician provides the necessary means or information and the patient performs the act” (Endlink). Supporters of assisted-suicide laws believe that mentally competent people who are in misery and have no chance of long-term survival, should have the right to die if and when they choose. I agree that people should have the right to refuse life-saving treatments, written in the patient bill of rights. But they should not have the freedom to choose to end their own lives with the help of a physician. Such laws devalue human life. Medical diagnoses are often inaccurate, leaving people who have been told they will soon die, to sometimes live for many months or even years longer. It can also be argued that seriously ill people often suffer from undiagnosed depression or other mental illnesses that can impair their ability to make an informed decision.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution assured that people born in The United States are American citizens and individual states cannot deprive them of their constitutional rights. It also assured that all citizens in all states enjoyed not only rights on the federal level, but on the state level, too. In 1866, when the 14th Amendment was ratified, the U.S. was in the midst of Reconstruction, particularly in the south. Because all African-American people freed from slavery, they needed land, housing, jobs, etc, and the Republicans wanted equality to be protected by the Constitution itself, which is where the 14th Amendment came into play. People were unhappy with the fact that President Johnson vetoed the proposal of the 14th Amendment at first. His argument was that federal protection of civil rights would lead to “centralization” of the government. He was also against giving African-Americans full citizenship. The 14th

The Death with Dignity Act (DWDA), which allows terminally-ill patients to request physician-assisted suicide, was first introduced in Oregon in 1997. The basic premise of the law is that terminally ill patients, with no outside help, should be able to choose the right to end their life. Since then a few more states have the DWDA or an similar law in their state; an ongoing debate is going on to make the act legal across the nation. The Death with Dignity act allows the individual’s request to die to be acknowledged by the state. Though various of groups and people have spoken against this act, Oregon, with close to two decades of experience with the law, has shown that it can work well even when faced with backlash from the public because

Even though the Westboro Baptist Church offends many people with their picketing and other demonstrations, I believe that the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution should continue to protect their right of performing these acts for two reasons. One, the first amendment already protects, in a sense, some of the actions the church performs, for example, the picketing of high school graduations and claiming perverts ran the schools. As unbelievable as it may sound, the first amendment allows them to say particular things like this because of what is known as the Sullivan Rule, which is a court guideline protecting inaccurate and harmful declarations against public officials as long as the claims were not known to be false at the time they

The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments in the Constitution. In modern day, some of these amendments are considered to be out of date, or need to be improved. These amendments are used all the time in normal life, and in the evolution of America.

In the documentary, Bill Moyers talks to three terminally ill patients, their families, and their doctors about the concerns with physician-assisted suicide (PAS). PAS allows a terminally ill patient to hasten an inevitable and unavoidable death through a lethal dose. The patients considered PAS in order to end their prolonged suffering. The legal role of advance directives in end of life issues allows a patient to specify how he wishes to be treated by a healthcare provider during a progressively weakened state. Advance directives may provide patients with freedom to choose end of life treatment, but moral and religious implications, the ethical battle between a physician’s duty to care and inner-conscious, and state laws pose threats to PAS.

Why Australia shouldn 't regulate euthanasia / Should euthanasia continue to be illegal in Australia.

The first issue is that the government is treating this “Right to Die” bill as a right that can be given and taken away. When in fact our right to live and die should fall under our Autonomy “our right to self-governor” (Vaughn). At no point should a governing body impede our constitutional right to self-determination, as long as that person is of sound body and mind. The second issue regarding the “Right to Die” bill is that it goes against Rawl’s Contract Theory “a social contract among individuals for mutual advantage” (Vaughn). This means that if everyone had the same health insurance as Governor Brown then everyone would get the best treatment possible of any disease that could force them to enable this bill. This means that no insurance company would deny a claim for treatment of a disease but approve a life ending medication just because it was cheaper. The final issue is the issue of Utility in regards to this bill. This bill does not produce the most favorable outcome for all involved. In fact, it causes concern for the people with disabilities, as well as the lower income classes. And these are only some of the people that this bill can negatively effect. The fact that people committed medically assisted suicide to save money should be a very serious concern for everyone. While this bill is a good thing for those that are terminally ill, it causes concern for those that are in lower

The Right to Die has been taking effect in many states and is rapidly spreading around the world. Patients who have life threatening conditions usually choose to die quickly with the help of their physicians. Many people question this right because of its inhumane authority. Euthanasia or assisted suicide are done by physicians to end the lives of their patients only in Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana, New Mexico and soon California that have the Right to Die so that patients don’t have to live with depression, cancer and immobility would rather die quick in peace.

Chronic diseases affect approximately 133 million Americans each year (National Health Council 1). Even more, are mortally wounded. All of these patients will most likely have to endure unnecessary pain and suffer a horrible end. Most of them do not want to go down the spiralling road of needless pain and have to face what these diseases will do in their last months or years. Why should doctors and Americans who have not been through these events be the ones to stop them if they do not want to go through all that trauma of these diseases or even injuries? They shouldn’t. That is why assisted suicide needs to be made legal in all of the United States.