An Analysis Of Assisted Suicide

Now that I’ve demonstrated that my ethical theory can be used to make educated decisions in situations that we can potentially face daily, how does my ethical theory fit with issues of life or death? My ethical theory focuses more on issues that an individual will face in their everyday life. It does not directly deal with issues of life and death; however you can still go through the core concepts to make a decision. For instance, let's take a look at assisted suicide.

After researching assisted suicide I have more questions than when I started. The definition of assisted suicide is very factual: suicide facilitated by another person, especially a physician, who organized the logistics of the suicide, as by providing the necessary quantities of a poison (The definition of assisted suicide 2016). After much research I have learned that assisted suicide is an option one has to make depending on their moral standards, will to live, and how they want to die rather than a factual process one can follow.

I learned that the United States, the Netherlands, and Germany had different culture, values and ethical morals when it comes to the euthanasia and assistant suicide. I discovered that my beliefs are adjacent to the Netherlands. The United States only has six states that allows euthanasia and assistant suicide. The Netherlands legalized the use euthanasia and assistant suicide. Germany’s culture is against the euthanasia, but approves assistant suicide. It is also necessary to understand that euthanasia and PAS it should be use only when there is no other way to diminish the pain, or the terminal ill cannot prolong the life of a person. The person who requested should be mental stable.

Imagine that you are in a physical condition that does not allow you to move your body. You feel nothing but pain. You cannot communicate your sorrow because you cannot move your mouth. You want to scream, but hardly a grunt comes out. There’s only one escape. Who is to say you shouldn’t take advantage of that? Medically assisted suicide is a controversial topic. It is the medical practice of allowing one’s terminally ill patient to take the most painless path to death possible to prevent them from choosing a horrifically painful alternative or simply passing away from their illness however that may be. Many believe that the legalization of this practice would lead to a massive amount of pressure on the terminally ill and lead to an unreasonable and dangerous amount of non-justified suicides. It is also not considered to be a legitimate medical practice by many. However, it is imperative that it is both legalized and socially accepted. By taking one’s life away, you also rid them of the misery that was already killing them. With proper restriction from suicide for people who do not need it, medically assisted suicide is entirely safe and beneficial to the patient using it.

The new topic that we discussed in class was about assisted suicide and death hastening. This new source that I found talks about if someone can hasten their death as they wished if they have dementia and I found this article to be really interesting. The article starts out by saying how it can be simple to hasten your own death. All you have to do is not eat or drink for a week. The article mentions the case of Margaret Bentley. Bentley had decided years ago that she wanted to stop eating if she became disabled. Her dementia had gotten a lot worse and she needed other people to help her. Her family would allow her to die and they respected her wishes, but the administrators of her nursing home did not. She even wrote and signed a living will

The issue of assisted suicide places the advanced practice nurse in a precarious ethical and legal position. While the goal of the nurse is to provide care for the patient and to provide appropriate and safe responses to patient requests, assisted suicide is quite the dilemma in regards to a request to perform acts considered illegal with criminal implications and forfeiture of licensure at stake. Regardless of the nurse’s personal opinion regarding the issue of assisted suicide, whether for or against, the nurse must also consider the legal and ethical ramifications of actions taken. The individual patient that the advanced practice nurse is working with is not the place to implement personal feelings and potential challenges to existing laws. If the nurse is motivated, there are appropriate methods of working within the legislature to challenge or modify laws and statutes. Placing the patient and/or their family in the middle of this personal opinion is inappropriate, even if the family or patient requests assisted suicide.

There are a multitude of interpretations within both the medical and legal fields about assisted suicide. The benefits of assisted suicide for a terminally ill individual are notably momentous. However, the argument is not extricated from opposition concerned with the obligations of the medical community. It is paramount to have an even-handed perception of the issue and present each side but recognize that the rights of the individual in arbitrating the specific route of his or her death, specifically in lethal cases where physical agony is a vital concern. Additionally, having admittance to physician-assisted suicide grants

The war between life and death will never cease to exist. The reality is that no one can stop this never-ending cycle, many terminally ill patients know this all too well. As time goes on, technology expands, so does the understanding of death itself. For over a decade, there have been several articles produced that focus on the ethical and legal issues that arise with this specific topic. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that there is neither a constitutional right nor a constitutional prohibition of assisted suicide. This ruling allowed for Oregon state to begin to “experimenting” with the legalization. Though, the majority of states continue to stand firmly behind their decision on the legalization of assisted suicide. On one hand, people find this issue to be unethical, that assisted suicide only exterminates the possibility of recovery. On the other hand, people believe that patients who have fought long and hard for survival should be able to decide whether or not they wish to continue their life. So the question stands; Should patients be given the option to end their own life with a physician 's assistance, or should it be deemed illegal in all states?

The information provided has enough evidence to support the desired course of action of the patient in question, Margie Whitson has unfortunately had a number of devastating occurrences that have affected her personally during the past few years. Health wise, while not terminally ill, she is in declining health (due to old age), compounded by the unfortunate fact that without her pacemaker her personal survival or longevity at best may be questionable. However, recent and impending legislative acts that are based on the right-to-die are concentrated on terminally ill patients, not on patients that simply wish to seek self-determination based solely on the facts surrounding this particular set of circumstances. While the circumstances surrounding the proposed request are heartbreaking to say the least, current laws are specifically

The debate on the morality and ethics of voluntary or assisted suicide versus passive euthanasia present an intriguing aspect in the nursing field. While there are distinct parallels between voluntary and assisted euthanasia, there exists a similarity that the death is explicitly at the request of the patient, and the doctor acts in a manner that brings about the death of the patient (Beauchamp et al. 2014, p. 82). In contrast, passive euthanasia does not directly involve the doctor and, as such, the patient dies of the medical condition that already afflicts them. However, despite these differences, the question of the ethical justifications of each of these actions remains largely debatable.

One of the most contentious issues in the entire field of healthcare and end-of-life care is the notion of assisted suicide, wherein the individual who wishes to end his or her own life is assisted by someone else, usually a physician. As Werner (2005, p. 135) notes, "straightforward answers to the difficult questions concerning the issues of euthanasia and assisted suicide are not yet available," but one can at least have a more robust conception of the issue's history, which in turn allows one to confront the contemporary discussion with greater insight. In the United States the topic rose to widespread prominence in the 1990s with the case of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who helped over forty people commit suicide before being convicted of second-degree murder. However, the debate regarding assisted suicide has been raging since at least the beginning of the twentieth-century, when the odd confluence of concerned citizens and eugenics advocates began arguing for legalized assisted suicide. This origin has tended to taint the discussion regarding the practice, and by tracing the history of assisted suicide in the United States, it will be possible to understand how the contemporary discussions of the issue represent a kind of backlash against the admittedly cruel and inhumane Social Darwinism of the early twentieth century.

Imagine that you have Lou Gehrig’s disease. Imagine that you are lying in a hospital bed knowing that your muscles are gradually and individually shutting down, knowing that eventually your throat and lungs will cease to function, and you will asphyxiate while you lie there waiting. This exact scenario happened to Sue Rodriguez. Sue had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s for two years, knowing it was only a matter of time before she died, when she decided she’d had enough. Sue appealed to the Supreme Court for the right to a peaceful death in 1993, with the famous quote: “If I cannot give consent to my own death, whose body is this? Who owns my life?” She lost her case 5-4, but later an anonymous doctor illegally helped her end her life.

Before reading this book I felt almost oblivious to how mentally ill someone can be without others knowing. The Best parts of the book were also the worst. The amount of detail that was displayed in the killer's point of view was exceedingly chilling. By the end of the book, I had very mixed feelings about everything. I just couldn't understand why the perpetrator waited that long to attempt to kill Lincoln off. He has had so many opportunities why now? I did feel that the whole assisted suicide was a tad bit overplayed throughout the book. Lincoln did suffer from depression, but the way they portrayed it, in the end, did throw me off. I would definitely recommend this book to other people. Though it does have scenes that are a bit harsh for

When we are born we are told that we have "free will", either by some form of higher power, or some other greater force. As such, it appears reasonable that one would have some preconceived right to choose whether or not they seek death in the case of a terminal illness. This choice to hasten our death for much of the world is not truly ours to make, with adversaries of assisted-suicide opposing the legalization of such acts, we are forcing beliefs onto others who prefer to pass at a time of their own choosing, and not be faced with the undignified process of dying caused by their illness. Who our “we” to make choices and hold the same standards for everyone, shouldn’t there be a

Imagine a person you deeply care about unable to walk, unable to see, unable to speak and, can barely breathe. This person is in such unbearable pain that they can’t even cry. They are battling a sickness with no cure that is only going to get worse and shortly lead to death. There is nothing left to do. Could ending their life medically be the answer to their pain? But, what if that wasn’t even an option because it was illegal.This situation is the reality for many people.