Argumentative Essay On Assisted Suicide

Taking a pro approach for physician assisted suicide, Jones’s article delivers the facts to why physician assisted suicide becomes legal. Physician assisted suicide is indeed legal in five U.S states such as, California, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and Colorado. Rather than the article being good or bad, this text is highly biased. Jones provides facts to why physician assisted suicide should be legalized. Applying this article helps provide factual evidence about the Death with Dignity laws.

In the United States today, only several states legally recognize physician-assisted suicide as an option for families and terminally ill patients hoping to embrace a death with dignity. Although there is a growing movement to promote access to physician-assisted suicide, the topic is still widely regarded as taboo. As of 2016, the states of Washington, Oregon, Vermont, Colorado, New Jersey, and California are the only states to allow full and legal access to physician-assisted suicide. Alongside those states are Montana and New Mexico, which legally offer “aid in dying,” meaning the state allows for physicians to assist in alleviating the longevity of the dying process.

Physician-assisted suicide is a topic that hits home to many people, both in the United States and across the world. Currently, five states have legalized physician-assisted suicide in the United States and it is crucial that every state reconsiders their stance on the issue. Each state needs to look at the pros and cons, as well as the implications of their decision on their stance on physician-assisted suicide. Citizens also have a critical role, as they must tell their legislators their stance on physician-assisted suicide so that the legislators can properly represent their states. This paper looks to show the major arguments for both the groups that support physician-assisted suicide as well as the groups that oppose physician-assisted suicide, while also taking other issues into consideration, such as different pressures legalization of physician-assisted suicide would have on different demographics.

An ongoing national concern is assisted suicide. Should it be legal or illegal? Assisted suicide is defined as the death of a patient due to suffering caused by an incurable disease. They end their life by taking lethal amounts of drugs provided by a doctor. (Oxford University Press 2015).In America, people have rights, but does the government have the authority to decide personal choices for them? This is a very realistic topic discussed among the nation’s citizens. The following are considered extreme viewpoints of this topic: humanistic, capitalistic, conservative, and liberal. There are currently only five states that practice the death with dignity law, those being Oregon, Washington, Vermont, New Mexico, and Montana. Some are legalized

Currently, in Vermont, California, Oregon, Washington,and New Mexico, lethal medication is being given to terminally Ill patients to end their lives. There are several reasons why assisted suicide is illegal in the majority of states, such as the demand for suicide due to a patient 's excruciating pain, misinterpreted life expectancies and diagnoses, poor medical coverage by insurance companies, and the financial interests of the patients families. On the other hand, some suggest various reasons why assisted suicide should be legal. The legal status of physician assisted suicide, as a hotly debated topic, teeters on both sides of legality in varying

Currently, physician-assisted suicide or death is illegal in all states except Oregon, Vermont, Montana and Washington. Present law in other states express that suicide is not a crime, but assisting in suicide is. Supporters of legislation legalizing assisted suicide claim that the moral right to life should encompass the right to voluntary death. Opponents of assisted suicide claim that society has a moral and civic duty to preserve the lives of innocent persons. There is a slippery slope involving the legalizing assisted suicide. Concern that assisted suicide allowed on the basis of mercy or compassion, can and will lead to the urging of the death for morally unjustifiable reasons is

In spite of this type of thinking, this practice should still be given a chance in Wisconsin because strict laws would be put in place to make sure it is prohibited. An apt example of this is one law created in Oregon states that the only way a patient would be eligible to die using euthanasia would be if they made two verbal requests, one request in writing, and the diagnosis, prognosis, and capability of the patient must be agreed upon by two doctors (Where is Euthanasia Legal?). It is blatantly obvious that if a patient must go through this entire process to die, they would have to want it a substantial amount. If Oregon can successfully create this law, then if Wisconsin proposed something like this we would be able to make this practice legal. An additional point made by death with dignity, a website dedicated to informing people of this type of practice, estimates, “Seven in ten Americans support Death with Dignity as an end-of-life option for the terminally ill; most people join our movement because of a heartbreaking personal experience.”(Death With Dignity Laws) Death affects everyone and firm laws put in place will allow those that are suffering for the last years of their life peace. It is inevitable that one day these laws will be all over America, Wisconsin should make history to be the 5th state to allow these

Idaho is one of the states that has gray areas dealing with euthanasia. In the past week, an article in the Post Register appeared that elaborates about the Idaho senate passing a bill, making assisted suicide illegal. Sen. Michelle Stennett voices several concerns about the bill saying, “There is … a very big gray area of what is considered when you take somebody off of life support. Will

Brittany Maynard, a woman known for her advocacy in the controversial topic of assisted suicide, officially ended her life this fall after learning of her fatal brain tumor. After complaining of horrible headaches, she decided to see a doctor where they gave her this traumatic news. She had two corrective surgeries to try and stop the growth of her large tumor, but they were unsuccessful. Her doctor then suggested full brain radiation, but after months of researching this option, along with many other, she knew her quality of what short life she had left would quickly deteriorate. With the help of her family, friends, and newly-wed husband, she made the decision to move with her loved ones from her California home to Oregon, where death with

On New Year’s day in 2014, 29-year-old newly wed and hopeful mother , Brittany Maynard, was diagnosed with a malignant stage four brain tumor and was given six months to live. After two failed surgeries and full brain radiation, Maynard made the decision to die on her own terms. She and her family moved to Oregon and established residency so that she could utilize Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act. Maynard chose to end her life on November 1, 2014. Before her death, Maynard asked her friends and family: “Who has the right to tell me that I don't deserve this choice? That I deserve to suffer for weeks or months in tremendous amounts of physical and emotional pain? Why should anyone have the right to make that choice for me?” This same question

In 1994, Oregon became the first state to pass a bill legalizing physician aid-in-dying (Richardson, 2011). This law would allow a terminally ill patient with 6 months or less to live to end their life by their own terms (“It’s Not Assisted Suicide”, 2011). This bill leads to the question “Why would a form of purposeful death be legalized?” The bill, itself was passed for many reasons including the fact that the patients want to have control over their life and ultimately their death (“It’s Not Assisted Suicide”, 2011). They also do not want to live in fear of what will eventually happen to them. “Death with Dignity” was passed is because many terminally-ill patients do not want to live in excruciating pain and in fear of what will happen to them, living a prolonged life or taking control over one’s death is a personal choice belonging only to the individual making it.

Currently in America, terminally-ill patients in most states have only two options: receive treatments (some experimental) or wait for natural death. The third option on the other hand, exists in only five states. For dying patients in Montana, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and California, they have the option for a physician assisted suicide (PAS). California recently passed the End of Life Option Act, thereby joining Oregon, Washington, and Vermont when it comes to legalizing PAS via legislation. For Montana, PAS is neither legal nor illegal according to a court decision. Judging by the fact that PAS is currently only practiced in five out of fifty states, it is clear that the issue of hastening the death of patients (by their own wishes) remains a hotly debated topic. This paper will proceed to analyze how each of the five states tackled the issues surrounding PAS.

deaths every day. Within these 153,000 deaths, about 90% of them are terminally ill patients

Assisted suicide is a topic that has ignited a severe debate due to the controversy that surrounds its implementation. Assisted suicide occurs when a patients expresses their intention to die and request a physician to assist them in the process. Some countries like Oregon, Canada, and Belgium have legalized the process terming it as an alternative to prolonged suffering for patients who are bound to die. Unlike euthanasia where a physician administers the process, assisted suicide requires that the patient voluntarily initiates and executes the process. Although there exists concession such a process is important to assist patients die without much suffering, there has emerged criticism on its risk of abuse and as an expression of medical

“Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right to a merciful death.”