Physician Assisted Suicide : A Legal Medicine Treatment

1. (problem – PAS): In today’s society, Physician Assisted Suicide is one of the most questionable and debatable issues. Many people feel that it is wrong for people to ask their doctor to help them end their life; while others feel it is their right to choose between the right to life and the right to death. “Suffering has always been a part of human existence.” (PAS) “Physicians have no similar duty to provide actions, such as assistance in suicide, simply because they have been requested by patients. In deciding how to respond to patients ' requests, physicians should use their judgment about the medical appropriateness of the request.” (Bernat, JL) Physician Assisted Suicide differs from withholding or discontinuing medical treatment, it consists of doctors providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication to aid in the use to end their life.

Ultimately physician assisted suicide goes against moral and ethical judgment that is placed within the “hands” of a practicing physician.

Since 1994, Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) has been legal in the state of Oregon. The law allows patients diagnosed as having less than six months to live to decide when they will die. Sadly, death is a fact of life. Losing a loved one to debilitating disease or terminal illness is an experience to which an increasing number of Americans can relate. Every day new cases of cancer, ALS, and other painful, potentially fatal diseases are diagnosed in the US. The American Cancer Society estimates that over 22,000 new cancer cases will be reported in 2015 in Oregon alone, with roughly 8,000 subsequently dying. Faced with such overwhelming diagnoses, many patients choose to fight; other patients opt to spend their remaining time with their families,

Physician assisted suicide is a controversial topic that should be practiced due to one's legal rights as a American, and as a human being. In previous cases in the Supreme Court, euthanasia has been discussed and many decisions about

The United States is a nation founded on freedoms and liberties, giving each citizen the ability to make their own life decisions. This freedom includes all aspects of one’s life, including medical care. With freedom comes responsibility, and this is true in terms of physician-assisted suicide. The ongoing struggle between those in favor and those opposed to this subject has ravaged the medical field, bringing into question what is morally and ethically right. The fact of the matter is that physician-assisted suicide is neither morally nor ethically acceptable under any circumstance. Not only is it a direct violation of a doctor’s Hippocratic Oath, but it is not constitutionally binding. Physician-assisted suicide would also lead to

Countries around the world realize the benefits to legalizing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. The Guardian provides an article about five countries and their stance on the controversial idea stating which of the five legalized this option along with the restrictions required before providing the dosage of lethal drugs. The Netherlands became the first country to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide; shortly after, Belgium followed. From there on,

(Hallock 1). This decision helps the patient to accept the dying process, knowing that it is not out

Thesis: When it comes to the topic of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), some experts believe that an individual should have the option of ending their life in the event that they have been given six months to live with a terminal illness or when the quality of their life has been vastly changed. Where this argument usually ends, however, is on the question whether physician-assisted suicide is medically ethical, would be overly abused to the point where doctors might start killing patients without their consent. Whereas some experts are convinced that just improving palliative care would decrease the need for someone to want to end their life before it happened naturally.

Death is not a topic that many people are comfortable with, some people believe it is outrageous for others to play God and decide when to end their lives. While this is true for people with normal pains, there are those who feel they have the right to choose their own fate because they cannot bear their pain and suffering anymore. These are people that are terminally ill, people who were diagnosed with a deadly disease without a cure and feel that death is the only way to relieve that pain. These people has gone through many treatments that are slowly becoming less and less effective. Even though the treatment isn’t working, the patients still have to live through the pain from the treatments. Terminally ill

Evidence: In the Netherlands, physician-assisted suicide was made legal, nationwide, 1981. In the following 20 years, Dutch policy went from PAS in cases of unbearable terminal illness, to legalized practices of extended euthanasia. According to Hendin in the Duquesne Law Review, once a form of “killing” was introduced and allowed in the legal, moral, and medical realms, it was impossible to prevent more lenient policy on assistance in death (Hendin 1996). This rapid evolution in policy leads to further abuses of the assistance in death, including involuntary euthanasia, which go largely unpunished, argued against, or investigated.

Physician-assisted suicide is, “the event wherein a physician provides a competent, terminally ill patient with a prescription of lethal drugs” (Schroepfer) this is given to a voluntary patient and this type of suicide has become increasingly recognized as a phenomenon deserving of more attention. The process of physician-assisted suicide is a fairly simple process, a doctor will write

Michele M. Mathes presents the topic of physician-assisted suicide in health care and expands on the views of professional health organizations and the opposing views of others. Health organizations such as the American Nurses Association have a specific code for nurses which goes against assisting in the suicide of a patient while other qualified individuals believe assisted suicide should be practiced but with a few modifications to the process currently in place. Though there are opposing views, a single nurse has the ability to decide whether or not they are willing to participate in assisted suicide if they find themselves in that situation. The author of this source is qualified both in her degree and in advocacy, and the article was

Physician Assisted Suicide/Dying is a medical practice surrounding the accelerated process of death among patients who – typically – have a terminal medical disorder that will either end the life of the patient, or have them live in suffering, pain, in a state of life they deem less than minimally good, or less than a life worth living. According to a study done in 1995, approximately 88 percent of physicians interviewed claimed that they had received at the very least, one request for PAS/D. (Maas, et al., 1996) As the practice becomes more commonly considered – and more importantly more commonly accepted – it is logical to assume these percentages will have increased. This increase due to not only more patient requests, but also due to the

Currently it is legal in four places among the world, Oregon, Washington, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The parameters of assisted suicide are different in every state or country. For example, Oregon’s law states that the patient must be terminally ill two physicians must have consulted with the patient, and that the patient must make repeated requests for assisted suicide to qualify. Many other countries do not outlaw assisted suicide but rather have no laws against them at all. However, physicians may face other charges if they do this in certain areas that don’t consider assisted suicide. If physician assisted suicide was pronounced legal in all states many laws could be constructed to respect the rights of the doctors, the patients, and their families. It would be easy for law makers to construct specific laws so that assisted suicide is not something just anyone could obtain.

Physician-assisted suicide is defined as “a physician intentionally helping a person to terminate his or her life by providing drugs for self-administration, at that person’s voluntary and competent request” (Radbruch et al. 109). There is a large controversy over whether or not a patient should be allowed to request and perform physician-assisted suicide; doctors and patients alike have mixed feelings on the issue. The first democratic nation to recognize the legality of physician-assisted suicide was Australia. They enacted a law that described certain conditions where the act was legal in the Rights of the Terminally Ill Amendment Act in 1996.