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Euthanasi The Complex Role Of The Physician With Physician Assisted Suicide

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The theoretical aim of this thesis is to introduce euthanasia, the complex role of the physician with physician-assisted suicide (PAS) under the argument that it is not an issue of passive or active. Nor right or wrong. Euthanasia is defined as the act or practice of killing or allowing someone to die on grounds of mercy (Morally Disputed Issues: A Reader, 341). In its complexion euthanasia is not merely a dead or alive decision as it truly is at its core goal. There is passive euthanasia which is defined as withholding treatment such as a ventilator or fluids. There is active euthanasia which is prescribing or initiating a substance that would allow a person to stop living. We also have to consider voluntary euthanasia- a patient seeks to …show more content…

Often times when a terminal patient has six months to live they still have autonomy. One would need to be autonomous to be approved for PAS and as such we can infer that the patient is able to make peace, tie up loose ends, find comfort in religion, and be comforted with family before being consumed by the disease. Giving the patient the option to die with dignity vs. naturally where time and treatments slowly deteriorate the mind and body can offer freedom from suffering for the patient and family. For example if a patient that felt ill and after medical testing receives a diagnosis that she has a rare systemic cancer and at best has six months to live. That patient then could with the support of her family discuss everything that needs to be taken care of prior to the advancement of the disease. After taking care of business, the patient could discuss with her family and friends ways to create special days leading up to her last day. This option could give the family, as well as the patient, the possibility to say goodbye before the disease has removed autonomy and personality. This patient’s family would not have to watch their daughter, wife, sister, or mother suffer greatly to the point she screams for God to take her.

In support of James Rachel’s belief that withholding PAS in a suffering patient is the equivalent to endorsing more suffering, I refute

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