California Should Adopt Oregon 's Death With Dignity Law

Assisted suicide is defined as a physician providing a patient the means to take his or her own life, usually through medicine. Washington, Vermont, Montana, and New Mexico has passed the laws to have the right to die with dignity. Those states based their decision on the fact that it minimizes the pressure to cut health costs. It has been stated assisted suicide is the cheapest thing that a person with an illness can do. These states claim that this law will help to prevent abuse. The bill allows physicians to prescribe medication to terminally ill patients who want to speed up the process to dying.

Physician-assisted suicide or PAS for short is one of the most controversial subjects we as a society discuss. Not only is it a controversial subject, but an ethical dilemma faced by patient and physicians alike. There are two types of terms associated with this type of death, physician-assisted suicide, and euthanasia. PAS is a term to describe a death where a physician prescribes a medication that is administered to the patient to assist in ending one’s life. As for

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

Ezekiel Emanuel once said, “Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia have been profound ethical issues confronting doctors since the birth of Western medicine, more than 2,000 years ago.” Physician assisted suicide (PAS) should be available as a dignified option for the terminally ill because it can be built in to the palliative care plan formulated by patient and Doctor, may alleviate some medical costs for the incurable, and it’s a moderated and humane way to end a person’s suffering.

Death With Dignity also called assisted suicide, right to die, and physician assisted suicide (PAS) allows physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to patients with a long term illness. In order for them to get a hold of such medications they must have six months or less to live and willingly request this.

A woman suffering from cancer became the first person known to die under the law on physician-assisted suicide in the state of Oregon when she took a lethal dose of drugs in March, 1998. The Oregon Death with Dignity Act passed a referendum in November, 1997, and it has been the United States ' only law legalizing assisted suicide since then. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, more than 4,000 doctors have approved of the assisted suicide law (cited in "The Anguish of Doctors,” 1996). The law allows terminally ill patients who have been given six months or less to live and wish to hasten their deaths to obtain medication prescribed by two doctors. The most important thing to notice is that this law does not include those who have been on a life support system nor does it include those who have not voluntarily asked physicians to help them commit suicide. The issue of doctor-assisted suicide has been the subject of the heated dispute in recent years. Many people worry that legalizing doctor assisted suicide is irrational and violates the life-saving tradition of medicine. However, physician-assisted suicide should be legalized because it offers terminally ill people an opportunity for a peaceful death and recognized the inadequacy of current medical practice to deal with death.

Brittany Maynard was a young woman in her twenties who received major news coverage over her decision to use euthanasia in order to end her brain-tumor-ridden life. After adventuring for months before the life-ending appointment, the terminally ill woman and her family moved to Oregon due to the state’s passage of the Death with Dignity law. On November 1st of 2014, Brittany Maynard received a fatal dose of barbiturates which ended her life while being surrounded by family and friends. She was 29 at time of her death (Egan, Fowler, & Keating,

The Oregon Death with Dignity Act was put into effect on October 27, 1997. This act allowed physicians to prescribe to terminally ill patients a lethal dose of medication in order to hasten their death, even though euthanasia is prohibited in the United States. According to Katrina Hedberg, this act has been revised by Oregon legislature, but has still been brought to attention of the United States Supreme Court on raised questions of legality. In order to receive a prescription for the Death with Dignity Act, the patient must reside in Oregon, be a terminally ill adult, and should be expected to die within a six-month time frame. Along with these requirements, patients must be able to make their own healthcare decisions. Katrina Hedberg found that over the course of ten years, physicians had written 546 prescriptions and a total of 341 Oregon residents passed away after the lethal dose under this act. The medications that were prescribed during this time were secobarbital and pentobarbital, and most patients would pass away within an hour of taking pentobarbital. Many physicians have reported that patients who requested these prescriptions often had a loss of autonomy and a decrease in their ability to engage in activities that they enjoyed. The results showed that these factors had increased over the course of ten years. According to physicians, patient’s concerns of pain had also increased during this time. This is still very controversial, but findings have shown that

The act of simply informing the patient about how he can end his life on his own is considered PAS. However, Physician assisted death, or euthanasia, is “when, at the request of the patient, a physician administers a medication or treatment, the intent of which is to end the patient’s life” (Lachman). The difference in the two concepts being the request of the patient. “According to research some 66% adults in the united states believes that a patient should be able to receive PAD in certain circumstances... And 47% of people are in favor of passing legislation permitting PAD (Health Research Funding). The idea that Physician Assisted Death should be legal is relatively new (since 1997, when Oregon passed legislation permitting PAD), and the concept is becoming more and more popular, with the population of Americans advocating for PAD to be legalized up 19% since 2001 (Lachman). On its way to being legalized, Physician Assisted Death is gaining supporters at every turn, it has even been legalized in four states including Oregon. “The Oregon Death with Dignity act (ODDA) allows a patient to request a lethal dose of medication

Brittany Maynard was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor at the age of twenty-nine. She was given six months to live and the option of full brain radiation. If she chose to go with radiation, it could have caused her to experience the following: fatigue, nausea, memory loss, and speech loss. She began to research physician-assisted suicide and decided that it was the best choice she had left. Physician-assisted suicide is the act of a doctor ending a terminally ill patient’s life using lethal drugs. As of modern day, physician-assisted suicide is only legal in 6 states which include; Oregon, Montana, Washington, Vermont, California, and Colorado. Luckily, she lived near Oregon: one of the six states to have it legalized. She went through with it to end the suffering. More states should legalize physician-assisted suicide because it would let people who are terminally ill die with tranquility and dignity.

In the video “Brittany Maynard Explains Why She’s Choosing Physician-assisted Suicide at 29”, Brittany Maynard takes a very strong position for assisted suicide. Her video reached a large audience when it was released in 2014, as she was the first person to not only openly support assisted suicide, but also then use it herself when she chose to die at age 29 due to her terminal brain cancer. Her purpose is to show people that choosing assisted suicide doesn’t mean someone is suicidal, but rather that they want to choose to die peacefully rather than in a degrading and painful way, like the one her future with stage four brain cancer would bring her. Maynard states, “There is a difference between a person who is dying and a person who is suicidal. I do not want to do. I am dying.” Maynard takes a significantly more personal and emotional take on the issue, comparable only to Jennifer Medina’s article in the New York Times where she interviews patients who have decided to use physician-assisted suicide to end their lives. However, Maynard shows a much more personal perspective in her explanation of why she chose to move to Oregon to obtain a lethal prescription under Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, and the struggles she went through in coming to that conclusion, as opposed to

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.

In 2014, Brittany Maynard became the face for those supporting physician assisted suicide or PAS. At 29 years old and newly married, Maynard was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and immediately underwent a partial craniotomy and partial resection. Her tumor came back much stronger, however, and in April she was given six months to live. Maynard’s only treatment option to slow but not stop the growth of the tumor was full brain radiation, but she opted against this because of the unavoidable side effects of hair loss, first degree burns, and the inevitability of death. In consideration of hospice, Maynard feared becoming resistant to morphine and losing her cognitive, motor, and verbal skills. Even more so, she did not want her family

The voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. But the patient receiving this has to be terminally ill, and has requested this several times. Every state has different laws with PAS. Take Vermont for example. Patient has to be a resident of the state, along with planning on passing here. The patient has to at least 18 years old, have six months or less left in his/her (expected)life, and be able to make conscious decisions regarding their health. The next step is for the physician. The family of and the patient have to be informed of other treatment as well as the assisted suicide, such as hospice care, pain management and palliative treatment. The attending physician needs to be licensed in the same state as the patient resides. After that is determined, there will need to be a prognosis of two different doctors of six months or less of life for the patient requesting this procedure. Both doctors also have to establish if the patient is competent for this large of a conclusion. If there is any

Brittany Maynard who supports the right to die movement was diagnosed with brain cancer and when her matter became intolerable and untreatable she took advantage of the death with dignity law that was passed in Oregon. She made the trip to Oregon where her physician prescribed fatal drugs and died quietly surrounded by family and friends. Before her death she initiated a campaign regarding choices by the terminally ill. After the death of Brittany Maynard who became the face of the right to die debate, the controversial topic skyrocketed in coverage through