Assisted Suicide Should Not Be Legalized

Most people should be able to accept that once they get to this point, these people have little to live for. Sometimes, those who are capable of communicating their desires, wish to pass on before the pain from their terminal disease starts to get too unbearable or they lose any sense of dignity they might have had. It is for the rights of those patients, that people within the assisted suicide movement are fighting for (ERGO).

Experts in pain management believe that if such pain can be relieved that in most cases, patients who request assisted suicide will withdraw their request once those issues are addressed. It might be the case that some patients who have requested physician assisted suicide are suffering from depression due to their circumstances and have not properly treated for this. Although this is not meant to be used for depression; in states where physician assisted suicide it is legal there is no psychological counseling required. Proponents of physician assisted suicide would argue that it gives the patient the power to choose when they will die but this isn't the case because many people may feel pressure from family who don’t want to take on the responsibility of caring for a terminally ill member. The patient may feel pressure not to financially burden their family with medical

Assisted suicide is also known as physician-assisted suicide because the physician assists the patient. Assisted suicide is suicide committed by a patient who is suffering from a disease, by taking the lethal drugs provided by a doctor for the purpose of committing suicide. When assisted suicide takes place it is the patient who ends his/her life not the physician. Before assisted suicide a physician provides an individual with information, guidance and means to take his or her own life with the intention that they be used for this purpose. Assisted suicide and euthanasia are different due do a big factor of what happens during them.

Imagine laying in a hospital bed living everyday in extreme pain with no hope of getting better. This scenario explains what many people go through everyday, which is a living with a terminal illness. M. Lee, a science historian, and Alexander Stingl a sociologist, define terminal illness as “an illness from which the patient is not expected to recover even with treatment. As the illness progresses death is inevitable” (1). There are not many options for the terminally ill besides dying a slow and painful death, but assisted suicide could be best option for these patients. Assisted suicide is “any case in which a doctor gives a patient (usually someone with a terminal illness) the means to carry out their own suicide by using a lethal dose of medication” (Lee and Stingl 1). Some feel that assisted suicide is unnecessary because it is too great of a controversy and will only cause problems in society. However, assisted suicide should be legal in the United States as long as there are strict regulations to accompany it.

Imagine you have a terminal illness. You are in immense, overwhelming, and constant pain, and it grows hard to bear. The medical bills are rapidly rising to keep you alive, and you know your family is going into debt. Waking up every day hurts more than the last, and the doctors say you have a month, if that, to live. They have checked your results and they know there is nothing you can do but wait. You often find yourself wishing there was a way you could have a peaceful, safe end to everything, surrounded by your family and loved ones. They can get out of debt and go back to their normal lives, and you will be in good hands and choose when you go. Assisted suicide is the practice that can allow an individual to do just that. It is when one

Suicide is one person’s personal decision; physician-assisted suicide is a patient who is not capable of carrying the task out themselves asking a physician for access to lethal medication. What people may fail to see however is that the physician is not the only healthcare personnel involved; it may include, but is not limited to, a physician, nurse, and pharmacist. This may conflict with the healthcare worker’s own morals and there are cases in which the patient suffers from depression, or the patient is not receiving proper palliative care. Allowing physician-assisted suicide causes the physician to become entangled in an ethical and moral discrepancy and has too many other issues surrounding it for it to be legal.

Physician assisted suicide can help relieve people from physical and emotional suffering. PAS can help someone die with dignity when he is ready instead of going through unbearable pain for the last six months of his life. Physician assisted suicide is a compassionate response to relieve the suffering of dying patients. People may argue that medical technology is always changing and can help patients live longer, but in reality medical technology can just prolong the pain that terminally ill patients feel. One of the top reasons that terminally ill patients choose PAS is because of the pain. For example, Lillian Boyes, who had rheumatic arthritis, begged her doctor to assist her to die because she could not take the pain she felt for any longer (“Right”). Some people feel like they are a burden to their families when they

The thoughts of assisted suicide are very mixed. Some people believe that it is a great way to put terminally-ill patients out of the their pain and suffering. They see it as a way for a person to die with dignity after suffering from a painful disease. Others think it is beyond morally wrong for a doctor to intentionally end a patient’s life. They feel that a doctor should not have unnecessary deaths riding, on their shoulders the rest of their career. Assisted suicide goes way beyond the beliefs of medicine and is morally wrong in so many ways.

Even if assisted suicide were to be permitted under some conditions, a second issue is whether physicians should ever participate in it. This is where the moral and ethical issues arise? Physicians may not want to have the burden of essentially killing a human being. A life is sacred and doctors avoid putting patients in severe pain. The law can get involved if a physician does administer this lethal dose of medication to their patient. For example, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was arrested for performing physician-assisted suicide on his patients. He clearly did not view assisted dying as an immoral type of procedure. “The site of most activity surrounding physician-assisted suicide is Michigan because Dr. Kevorkian practiced physician-assisted suicide there despite its illegal status. From 1990 to 1999, when he was convicted and imprisoned, Kevorkian assisted in more than 130 physician-assisted suicides” (Grosswald, 2002).

By having a doctor writing a prescription to a terminally patient, a doctor can allow the patient to end their life in a safe, effective and painless way. A lot of patients, who are suffering from chronic, painful, fatal conditions that would eventually bring death, have a strong belief that the only way to stop the suffering for them and their family watching them is suicide. Before the thoughts of a physician assisted suicide the patients would attempt suicide on their own, an act which was not as painless or successful as the doctors option to helping out. The option of the doctor’s choice would be much more painless and faster than the patient attempting it on their own. As one study shows, “Medical illness was a factor in half the suicides in people ages 50 and older and 70 percent of those ages seven years and older. Increased life expectancy, chronic illness, technology advances, and expanded treatment options have all complicated the process of dying” (Mackelprang 315). There is always a good chance that a suicide attempt could go very wrong and have a worse effect on the patient than before the attempt. Although an unsuccessful suicide attempt is a worse case scenario, it should be noted that many suicide attempts are not painless. For patients removing life support, the process is very slow and painful. The suffocation process is not the humane way for any one to have to die. If the patients who were thinking about attempting suicide on their own

The debate on legalizing assisted suicide is an issue across the globe. It has brought countries to contemplate on the legalities of the matter in their respective legislative branches of government. Assisted suicide is just simply a matter of assessing one's will to perform such act with the permission of the subject or the patient in such way his will be done. The debate now focuses on either the act shall be legalized or not.

No, terminal illness should not be a killer. For starters, a terminal illness is an illness from which the patient is not expected to recover even with treatment, as the illness continues, the result is death. In 6 of the 50 United States of America, they have an option for a terminally-ill patient, it is called assisted suicide. Assisted suicide occurs when one person gives another person the instructions, means, or capability to bring about their own demise (Smith 623). Some say our pets are treated more humanely than our own people because if an animal is hurt and they cannot be fixed, the result is to put it out of its misery. I believe that humans should have this right in all 50 states as well. Everyone should have the right to choose how they want to die.

“The best preparation for death is a life well lived.” was said by Doctor Robert Liner. He had a close encounter with this issue, assisted suicide, which is when a physician can give a patient lethal drugs to choose to kill themself because they are in such agony. This is very controversial, whether people think it is right or wrong. When you hear the word suicide people become scared. Human nature is being scared of death because everyone has the instinct to survive. However, when someone is near death and they do not want to experience pain any longer why would someone make them do something they do not wish to do. So is assisted suicide morally okay to the doctor and the patient? Assisted suicide may seem wrong in many moral ways but through

I do not think food and hydration are the same as respirators and other artificial means. All humans need food and water to survive on Earth, but very few need machines to help them breathe. Although I do not agree with any form of assisted suicide, I feel it is much more merciful to take someone of a respirator than to starve him or her to death.

As patients come closer to the end of their lives, certain organs stop performing as well as they use to. People are unable to do simple tasks like putting on clothes, going to the restroom without assistance, eat on our own, and sometimes even breathe without the help of a machine. Needing to depend on someone for everything suddenly brings feelings of helplessness much like an infant feels. It is easy to see why some patients with terminal illnesses would seek any type of relief from this hardship, even if that relief is suicide. Euthanasia or assisted suicide is where a physician would give a patient an aid in dying. “Assisted suicide is a controversial medical and ethical issue based on the question of whether, in certain situations,