Assisted Suicide Research Papers

Physician-assisted suicide should be legal nationwide. As a former hospital employee, I know first-hand that some diseases can cause so much disability and pain that patients want to end their lives because they have had enough. Something dear to me is personal autonomy, a right of all people. If the patient is competent and wants to end their life, and a health care provider is willing to humanely help end that patient's life, then physician-assisted suicide should be legal and be performed, per the individual's wishes.

On the positive side of assisted suicide, it is strongly believed that the right to assisted suicide allows the terminally ill to have a clean and fair death. No one wants to live with pain and sorrow. From their perspective, doctor's help the suffering and terminally ill to die when they choose is nothing wrong. From what they had argued, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution allows people the right to freedom of speech, press, petition, religion. With this logic, it would be reasonable to believe that you are allowed to have the right to die. The right to assisted suicide can help the patients with the terminally ill to release from pain and suffering, reduce the damaging financial effects of hospital care on their families, and preserve the individual right of people to determine their own fate.

According to a poll in 2015, 68% of United States residents believe that physician assisted suicide should be legal (“In”). Physician assisted suicide (PAS) gives terminally ill patients a way to end their lives peacefully before they die from whatever terminal illness they have. If physician assisted suicide became legal, many people would be saved from pain and anguish. On top of that, ill people could retain some power and control over their life. And though bringing money into the discussion might be crude, assisted suicide can save millions. Physician assisted suicide should be legal in order to ensure a dignified death for terminally ill patients.

Additionally, the term “euthanasia” does not mean the same thing as assisted suicide. Often people confuse these processes when they differ immensely. Despite this, they remain similar in their resulting death of a human life through the help of a physician. Euthanasia is the direct killing of a patient by a physician by means of lethal injection and it is completely controlled by the doctor. On the other hand, patients in assisted suicide have full control over the process that leads to their death. For this reason, procedures of these sorts must be eliminated as medical treatments and should not be authorized. Consequently, physician assisted suicide has been proven to lead to euthanasia in some cases. Assisted suicide should become illegal in all fifty states of the United States of America because it raises religious concern, endorses legalized murder, puts vulnerable people at risk of abuse, and

Assisted Suicide/ Euthanasia is wrong and should not be allowed to be a law. Families shouldn’t have to go through that pain of their family member killing themselves because they hate the pain they are going through. The pain will go away with time and there is medicine for any kind of pain. There are some people who believe that there should be a choice for people who are in pain and they should have that choice because they want what they think is best for themselves. However, there are people who take Assisted Suicide/ Euthanasia to the extreme and people who “have pain” use it and they use it for the wrong reason. Many people don’t think this is a necessary reason for killing yourself. Studies show that there is a great amount of people who suffer from pain or depression that commit suicide(Why Assisted Suicide). Dr. Eli Robbins found that 47% of those committing suicide were diagnosed with schizophrenic panic disorders and

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.

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

People say that assisted suicide is much better for patients because it is faster and more efficient. Some may even you the word “cleaner”, literally and politically. Though assisted suicide is the patients’ choice, it still leaves a big impact on the family and friends left behind. Some may even believe that the name is tarnished after the person is dead and gone. When death happens, people aren’t going to think about all the good memories and accomplishments a person has made in their lives, they are only going to think about how many pills they took to die or how big the needle was that was injected into their friends’ body to aid in the death of their family member or friend. Physician assisted suicide is preferred because no one wants to suffer in the last days of their lives. In 45 states, assisted suicide is in fact still illegal. So many people suffer until the end. It is good in some cases because when people become terminally ill, they tend to commit suicide in a more violent way. No one would want a person to take their own life in a horrible way like slitting their wrist, so why not let them die in peace. People should be able to die

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld court decisions in Washington and New York states that criminalized physician-assisted suicide on July 26, 1997.12 They found that the Constitution did not provide any “right to die,” however, they allowed individual states to govern whether or not they would prohibit or permit physician-assisted suicide. Without much intervention from the states individuals have used their right to refuse medical treatment resulting in controversial passive forms of euthanasia being used by patients to die with dignity such as choosing not to be resuscitated, stopping medication, drinking, or eating, or turning off respirators.9

Assisted suicide can open the floodgates for anyone to medically end their life, even if they are not ill. Laws are put in place to

Assisted suicide, whose life is it? In reality it is the person’s life, and if they are suffering from a terminal illness they should get to choose whether or not they want to suffer. One very aggressive form of a terminal illness is the Glioblastoma Multiforme. This type of brain tumor is more common than a person may think it is also very deadly (Markert). Who is to say a person can’t end their terminal illness, pain, and suffering? They are just like every other human being who wants to die with dignity.

Every single day, people all over the United States are diagnosed with terminal illnesses. They are forced to wait until they die naturally; all the while their bodies are deteriorated by the illness that will eventually take their lives. Sometimes this means living with insufferable pain and nothing they can legally do about it. People are able to put their pets to sleep when they are suffering; it is even considered the humane thing to do. Why must we live with life ending illnesses and insufferable pain? Physician-assisted suicide should be legalized because people should have the right to end their lives when they choose to and contrary to popular belief, physician-assisted suicide will not leave the presumably vulnerable

Not only is assisted suicide considered murder, it also goes against Physicians’ Hippocratic Oath. “Hippocratic Oath: An oath (or promise) all physicians must swear to uphold, regarding the ethical practices of the medical profession” (Lee). By allowing doctors to stray from this oath, it will be easier for them to aid in or carry out assisted suicides when it will never be entirely necessary for them to consider the option. “In 2005, Texas doctors removed two patients from life support without advanced directions and against the wishes of the patient’s family” (Pawlick). By not legalizing assisted suicides, families will be able to decide when their family member is physically unable to continue with the provided treatments, but only when the patient themselves can no longer communicate their wishes and no document stating how they should go about the situation has been left in their families possession.

Another reason that assisted suicide and euthanasia should be legal everywhere is because it can be the key for terminally ill people to avoid agonizing and intense pain. According to a Statistics Brain study, Euthanasia Statistics, on average “55 percent of terminally ill patients die in pain,” this would lead one to believe that if a nation were to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, less of these terminally ill patients will die painful

Assisted suicide should be the ultimate solution of a person suffering and hoping to end his miserable life. Although legalizing assisted suicide might lead to a great amount of deaths, a person must have the freedom and the right of controlling his own life. An ill person lying in the hospital bed barely moving his eye would be living a life of misery, a life of despair just because the “Law” says he can’t choose to die. Well this person in this situation knows what’s best and he must have the definite permission to choose whether to live suffering or end his life. Assisted Suicide, being a debatable matter nowadays, should be legalized as every person has the right to choose his fate and certainly his future.