Euthanasia - Physician Assisted Suicide

Within the past few years physician assisted suicide has been a major topic of debate. Assisted suicide is termed as suicide committed with aid from another individual, including a doctor. With the suicide term raising much concern, many people interchangeably use other terms. A few terms are death with dignity, physician assisted death or compassionate dying. Physician assisted death is implemented for those that are terminally ill and mentally capable adults that would prefer to shorten their dying process. The option of being able to get medical aid in dying only apply to certain states, and must pass through an election for that specific state. The first state to vote on the subject was Oregon and eventually passed in 1994 as the Death with Dignity Act (Jackson, 2008). There are now six states in the United States that has passed this act. The states that are allowing physician assisted death are District of Columbia, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California and recently Colorado.

Legalized physician assisted suicide. California, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington have made it legal by legislation, and Maine has made it legal by a court ruling. The remaining 45 states

Physician-assisted suicide was first made legal in the state of Oregon. (Hendin) In cases of euthanasia, physicians often give lethal doses of a medication to terminate a patient’s life because they’re experiencing intolerable pain. Patients who wish to use the Death with Dignity law in Oregon must be eighteen or older, must be a resident of Oregon, and they must be able to make their own health care decisions. (Sharp 53) However, the law does not require the patient to be in unmanageable pain, they must just have a prognosis of less than six months to live. (Sharp 54) This law seems to be in place to kill patients more quickly to open up hospital space, instead of compassionately ending someone’s suffering.

Thirty six states have statutes that explicitly criminalize assisted suicide: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin. Eight states criminalize it through common law: Alabama, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Vermont, West Virginia. Three have abolished common law crimes and do not have statutes criminalizing assisted suicide: North Carolina, Utah, Wyoming. In Ohio, the state’s supreme court ruled in Oct 1996 that assisted suicide is not a crime. In Virginia, there is no real clear case law on assisted suicide, nor is there a statute criminalizing the act. However, there is a statute that imposes civil sanctions on person assisting in suicide. Oregon permits physician assisted suicide.

There are currently three states that have adopted legislation supporting “Death with Dignity”, also known as physician-assisted suicide. Oregon, Washington, and Vermont have each enacted laws that enable a terminally ill, mentally competent, adult to decide and dictate end of life decisions up to and including the time of their death. Oregon was the first United States (U.S.) to enact legislation and other states in the union have followed suit.

Physician-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia is still under scrutiny for a number of reasons. “In spring, 1996, the Ninth and Second Circuits were the first circuit courts in the country to find a constitutional prohibition against laws which make physician-assisted suicide a crime” (Martyn & Bourguignon, 1997). New York was one of the states that followed this prohibition. Eventually, The Ninth and Second Circuit, “allow physician-assisted suicide while attempting to protect individuals from unacceptable harms, such as involuntary euthanasia” (Martyn & Bourguignon, 1997). An assumption can be made, that euthanasia involves a licensed physician to play an active role in this partaking, and it’s where the patient prepares to die at.

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.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian may have been onto something though. Today, physician-assisted suicide is legal in one state: Oregon. Medical Doctor Suzan Okie stated that Oregon has a set of laws for assisted suicide. The patient must be 17 or older, be able to communicate and make decisions, be terminally ill with less than six months to live, and the request must be written and spoken orally. If the doctor is suspicious of the decision, a psychiatrist can evaluate the patient’s mental condition (1627).

Being able to decide the fate of your own life is not an easy decision to make, and is not something to be toyed with. However, when someone is in a desperate situation, and must choose before they lose their mind (quite literally), death may be more appealing, instead of living, and being forced to suffer. By legalizing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, we would provide “vulnerable” patients with better overall protection and health care, give patients (who are excruciatingly suffering and have no chance of recovery) the option to end their lives before they ever needed to go through such an ordeal and giving them peace of mind, and spare the families of the patients the emotional pain of watching their loved one slowly and painfully passing away. For these reasons, I believe that euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide should be legalized in Canada.

These states include Oregon, New Mexico, Montana, Vermont, and Washington that allow the help of a doctor to take away the life of the patient that decide to end their life and the pain that is causing the patient. For example, pharmacist and doctors instruct the patient how to take the dosage of the prescribed drug. So. if in a case that patient don’t know how to take the drug and need help the patient can do it with the help of a professional health care. Physician assisted suicide is similar to assisted suicide because both are taking the life away, but the main the difference is it may be held or not held responsible of the action. Since most of the states don’t allow this, people actually move to those states that do allow it to end their painful lives and not having to suffer anymore. In the states that do allow it have certain requirements to be met in order to be qualified to take this action and additional requirements. In most states, the law of physician assisted suicide are similar and have the same requirements that need to be adhered. These requirements include, patient must be 18 years or older, resident of that state in which they live in, patient must be capable of doing this action, diagnosed with a terminal disease that is within the months to live. Some states may have other requirements to do this action and the time in which the patient will live. Oregon for

When dealing with Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) ethical dilemmas can come into place. Known as Euthanasia allows physicians to cause death to a terminally ill patient. There are many states that passed the law to allow PAS Oregon and Washington are just two of them. There are five total that allow PAS and they are Washington, Oregon, Vermont, Montana, and California. With Montana PAS is a court ruling meaning that you well must go to court and present your case. While, CA, OR, VT, and WA are legislation. You must be least eighteen. a resident of the state, and diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within mouths. On October 27,1997 Oregon created the “Death with Dignity Act”. It allowed people who were terminally ill

Physicians have the obligation to relieve pain and suffering and to support the dignity of dying patients and must respect the patients decision. The practice of physician assisted suicide has reportedly also been administered to those deemed chronically depressed. Oregon, Washington, and Montana have legalized this practice, and in 2013 Vermont declared that suicide with prescribed medications was a legal medical treatment. New Mexico is inching closer to being the fifth state

Instead of calling physician-assisted suicide what it actually is, its supporters would rather call it “Death with Dignity.” Such an act can be found in five states including Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California, and Montana. The difference between Montana and the other four states is that it is only legally allowed on a case-by-case basis (Death with Dignity). The first time the Death with Dignity Act took effect was in

Today’s advancements in technology allow people to live longer, or suffer longer depending on your view. This presents an increase of people who wish to just end their life if no more enjoyment can come from it. One way to do this is through physician-assisted suicide (Walker). A physician-assisted suicide is defined as when a doctor, knowing the intentions, supplies a patient who is suffering from a terminal illness, with the means to commit suicide (Brody). Oregon was the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the year 1997. Assisted suicide is now currently legal in only the five states that are Oregon, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont, and Washington (Walker). Thirty-six others states have specific laws in place that have been

One of the only places on Earth to legalize physician-assisted suicide is the state of Oregon with a Death with Dignity Act. However, Oregon residents have a peace of mind knowing that if it came down to needing physician-assisted death, they would have it available (Dick and Lindsey).