Assisted Suicide : A Controversial Debate

Assisted suicide is the suicide of a terminally- ill patient, achieved by using a prescribed drug from a doctor for that specific purpose. It is legal in only six states in the United States of America including: Oregon, Montana, Washington, Colorado, Vermont, and California. Countries such as Germany, Japan, and Switzerland have legalized assisted suicide in past years. It has been disputed for many years and continues to be a controversial issue whether physicians should be authorized to end an individual’s life with their prescription and if this should be done legally.

of life. Death is inevitable. Why should each of us not have the right to

Physician-assisted suicide is a controversial subject all around the world. Although it is legal in some countries and states, such as the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Oregon, Montana, Washington, and Vermont it is not yet legal in most (Finlay, 2011). People travel from all around the world to these locations to receive information. Physician-assisted suicide is when terminally ill and mentally capable patients perform the final act themselves after being provided with the required means and information. The elemental causes found for physician-assisted suicide include: terminal cancer, mental and behavioral disorders, diseases of the nervous system, disease of the circulatory system, and diseases of the musculoskeletal system

Many people in the world are suffering from illness that cannot be cured. They live their last days in pain and suffering wondering when and why it happened to them. Instead of suffering, many people dream of suicide to take their pain away but they know no one would understand. In very few states, it is legal for people to get assistance to put them out of their pain and suffering. It is called assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is the help from a physician to end their patients’ lives with their permission. The patient must have a terminal illness with less than six months to live to qualify. Many people are against assisted suicide because they believe that it is just a cover for murder. People should be thought of as dying with dignity

Brittany Maynard was given six months to live after being diagnosed with the deadliest form of brain cancer; she had recently just turned 29. To make matters worse, doctors had told her she would suffer from the tumor in a slow and painful manner before succumbing to death. Maynard decided she would die on November 1, a few days after her husband’s birthday under physician-assisted suicide. Unfortunately, she had to relocate from California, where her friends and family lived, to Oregon in order to fall under the “Die With Dignity” act. According to euthanasia.procon.org, only four states in the whole country have legalized assisted suicide. Unfortunately, there are many like Maynard, who have to relocate and leave their home or go through a long and strenuous court battle to receive this treatment plant. This is due to the disapproval of physician-assisted suicide.

Physician Assisted Suicide has become an enormous debate across the world. It was originally thought to be entirely cruel and immoral, but, as time has passed and medical ethics have been considered, it has slowly gained acceptance. Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) is a legitimate option for those suffering from painful terminal illnesses. It allows the patient who is suffering to have a choice in the matter of their life, which is valuable when someone is in such a vulnerable place. Legally, the topic has not done extremely well in the past, but in recent years people have acknowledged that legally there is nothing wrong being done. There are laws and regulations that are followed while performing PAS, making it nearly impossible to take advantage of it. Slowly PAS has gained acceptance, from different states, and from general people worldwide. Physician Assisted Suicide is a valid option for terminal patients and should not be criminalized or considered cruel.

Nowadays, in the United States, people face many big controversial issues. Besides problems related to the reality of daily life like health care, government intercepting phone calls, raising the minimum wage, gender equality, human rights, equality, anti-racism ... have practical effect on social life. People are also really concerned about the issue of physician-assisted suicide. Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) or euthanasia has become a controversial issue today, and that related to consciousness, choices and decisions about life of people. PAS is an action expressing an intention of ending a life to relieve intractable, persistent, and unstoppable suffering. Another idea, PAS is the

id you know, from “1998 to 2003, 171 patients died using AS” according to The Oregon Department of Human Services (Ersek, 50). AS stands for Assisted Suicide and Physician Assisted Suicide is the practice of providing a terminally ill patient with a prescription for medication to use with the main intention of ending his or her own life. “These actions included delivering the prescription for a lethal drug dose to the patient’s home, helping the patient take the lethal dose by crushing a medication and adding it to ice cream or pudding, placing the medication in the patient’s mouth, or instilling the medication into an enteric tube” (Ersek 51). The right to assisted suicide is an important topic that alarms people all over the US. The controversies

Some states and countries allow physical assisted suicide to patients who are deemed terminally ill. Every year thousands of patients are place in hospice care, only to be given an estimated time frame of how long they have to live. During this time, these patients are suffering from terminal diseases and conditions. In 1994, Oregon became the first state to write the Death with Dignity act into law. For those suffering from terminal illness this was great news. However, this controversial law would soon be repealed in 1997, only to be reinstated in 2006. Ever since then, other states have exercised their rights to adopt similar laws and others have not due to the controversy surrounding this topic. Although some states have endorsed this topic,

Physician-assisted suicide is currently legal in five states in the United States. These include California, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. The laws included that for a patient to be eligible for this procedure, they had to be diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months

Assisted suicide was legalized throughout Canada as a part of Bill C-14. This bill permits that physician-assisted suicide with certain criteria that needs to be met; including a reasonably foreseeable death, a reflection period, a written and signed letter stating that they understand what they are about to do and two medical/nurse practitioners provide a written opinion confirming that person's eligibility for assisted suicide. The option to have an assisted suicide brings up many topics of debate over how beneficial assisted suicide really is.

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

Over the last thirty years the fight over assisted suicide has earned a spot in the national spotlight, for both positive and negative reasons depending on your stance on the issue. There have been challenges made based off the constitution, the right to privacy and moral reasons for both sides. While there have been many notable persons of interest during this time some have helped the cause as others have hindered progress.

Joni at age 17 had mishap that let in a state of quadriplegic and paralyzed from her shoulder down. To her she had no purpose of life anymore. Her situation causes her to feel that she will be an inconvenience to people, because of her disabilities. Joni had to tolerate suffering and hardship, to her there was no point of living this way and wishes to be euthanized. Her wishes for assisted suicide brings an ethical dilemma in a Christians worldview. The dilemma is that suicide is consider a sin and to assist Joni with her request goes against my beliefs. There is a decision that I have to make I can assist her in her request against my beliefs or I can choose not to do it and explain to Joni why is it important not to commit this sin

One of the truly combative issues that is being deliberated today, both morally and legally is assisted suicide, occasionally well-known as active euthanasia. Assisted suicide is the action of directly overriding in order to end the life of a terminally ill patient. Euthanasia", comes from Latin "eu" for "good" and "Thanatos" for "death" (OCRT 1). “As John Cooper has noted (Cooper 1989, 10), neither ancient Greek nor Latin had a single word that aptly translates our ‘suicide,’ even though most of the ancient city-states criminalized self-killing”. Countless people in this country are surviving in a living death, be in pain on a day to day basis. The Declaration of Independence provides Americans with three rights: Life, Liberty,