Physician Assisted Suicide Essay

Physician Assisted Suicide Is it Right or Wrong? The ethical issues of physician-assisted suicide are both emotional and controversial, as it ranks right up there with abortion. Some argue physician assisted suicide is ethically permissible for a dying person who has choosing to escape the unbearable suffering at the end of life. Furthermore, it is the physician’s duty to alleviate the patients suffering, which at times justifies providing aid-in -dying. These arguments rely a great deal on the respect for individual autonomy, which recognizes the rights of competent people to choose the timing and manner of their death, when faced with terminal illness.

It is said that helping somebody who wants to die in a peaceful, painless way should be legal. Choosing how we die is a basic human freedom and if an individual's quality of life is deteriorating, due to a terminal disease such as cancer, they should have the right to stop their suffering via physician assisted suicide. It might be the case that the drugs for assisted suicide are far less expensive than the cost of their current medical care. This allows the government to save money as well as the lift the financial burden from the family of patients who are suffering from serious illness. Some people say that physician assisted suicide decreases the value of human life, but this isn't the case as it actually helps those who are terminal retain their dignity and choose their own death.

The most powerful argument for physician assisted suicide is that it can relieve tremendous pain and suffering of severely and terminally ill patients. Patients with advanced cancer or other diseases that lead to a painful death that medical science is not yet able to treat effectively should be offered the option of cutting short the pain that is inevitably tied to the end stages of their disease. Because of their special expertise, physicians are best suited to assist a patient in ending their life in a peaceful and pain-free manner. As a society, failing to offer patients this choice shows a lack of compassion and humanity. Along with saving terminally ill patients from pain, physician-assisted suicide should be legalized to allow patients with degenerative, progressive illnesses the option of choosing death before it robs them of their mental and physical faculties. Diseases such as Lou Gehrig's disease, multiple sclerosis, Huntington's disease and Alzheimer's disease lead to a slow, inevitable decline in function that medical science has been unable to treat effectively. A person with one of these diseases may wish to choose death as a way to preserve their dignity and in order to be remembered by their family and friends as they wish to be remembered, rather than as a shell of their former selves. Former President Ronald Reagan suffered from Alzheimer's disease. He was out of the public eye when he was in the last stages of the disease. He was able to be remembered by the public as a strong and successful leader, rather than as an Alzheimer's victim. Others should also have this right. After considering the benefits to the patient of allowing physician assisted suicide, the benefits to the family and friends of the dying person should also be considered. The suffering of a dying person's friends and

The word suicide gives many people negative feelings and is a socially taboo subject. However, suicide might be beneficial to terminally ill patients. Physician- assisted suicide has been one of the most controversial modern topics. Many wonder if it is morally correct to put a terminally ill patient out of their misery. Physicians should be able to meet the requests of their terminally ill patients. Unfortunately, a physician can be doing more harm by keeping someone alive instead of letting them die peacefully. For example, an assisted suicide can bring comfort to patients. These patients are in excruciating pain and will eventually perish. The government should not be involved in such a personal decision. A physician- assisted suicide comes with many benefits for the patient. If a person is terminally ill and wants a physician assisted suicide, then they should receive one.

In homes across the world, millions of victims are suffering from fatal and terminal illnesses.With death knocking on their door, should these people have to endure pain and misery knowing what is to come? The answers to these questions are very controversial. Furthermore, there is a greater question to be answered—should these people have the right and option to end the relentless pain and agony through physician assisted death? Physician-Assisted Suicide PAS is highly contentious because it induces conflict of several moral and ethical questions such as who is the true director of our lives. Is suicide an individual choice and should the highest priority to humans be alleviating pain or do we suffer for a purpose? Is suicide a purely

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.

People with incurable diseases are living in excruciating pain up until the day they die. Assisted suicide, though it sounds dreadful, can put an end to the suffering. Terminally ill patients should get the option to “die with dignity.” It is their individual right! For the common good, I think assisted suicide should be legal in all fifty states. Otherwise individuals will be suffering for years on end, knowing that there is

Pain is universal. In life, everyone will feel pain; it is inevitable and cruel. Physical or emotional, insignificant or severe, it is there. The pain continues mounting into an unbearable amount of suffering. Suffering that blots out everything of worth, such as family, love, aspirations, and optimism. Hopelessness seizes any will to endure. With no way to subside or control the pain, often one will go to extremes in order to be free of it. Many take their life, in order to escape the horror. Committing suicide is a traumatizing experience for any and all involved. Life is precious. The chance to live is only given once, and cannot be taken for granted. Preventing even a single life from ending early is imperative and obligatory

Is physician assisted suicide ethical? Physician assisted suicide is an up and coming ethical question that examines a person’s right to their own death. Many people support physician assisted suicide, citing that it can save a lot of pain and suffering. Others claim that the concept of physician assisted suicide is a slippery slope. A slippery slope in the sense that if society accepts euthanasia as a rightful death for the terminally ill, they will potentially accept it for other ailments as well.

Now if a physically healthy person who suffers from severe depression requests or seeks assistance in this manner than the physician should do everything in his power to help treat the depression and prevent a suicide including not giving the lethal medication. On the other hand if a person who is competent, has a healthy mind, but terminally ill and has been deemed so by at least two different physicians from different hospitals and suffers a tremendous amount of physical pain seeks out the assistance of physician to aid in his or her death than that doctor would be morally obligated to assist the person. Physician-assisted suicide emphasizes that the doctors or physicians roles in this is nothing more than to be the assistant in an act started by the patient. Saying that doctors are “killing” patients is technically correct it incorrectly suggests that this act is driven by the physician and brings about uneasy visions of doctors killing socially unworthy people, but this could not be further from the truth as physicians are always hesitant and wary to be partners in physician-assisted suicide but are motivated by the compassion they feel toward suffering patients that have no better alternative and seek out this assistance. One example of this is Aja Riggs of New Mexico who had been diagnosed with uterine cancer and said “ I just want the choice to end it if the suffering becomes

The purpose of this research paper is to examine the many different angles of a controversial topic such as physician assisted suicide or euthanasia. Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is when a person kills him or herself and the doctor supplies the means knowing what the intention is. The doctor prescribes a medication to their patient in lethal doses. This allows the patient to choose when they want to die. They can take the pills at home with friends and family present if they wish or they could peacefully go alone. Euthanasia is lethal injection by a physician. PAS is currently illegal in the United States of America with the exception of one state, Oregon. Euthanasia is illegal in the entire United States. Throughout the rest of the

Assisted suicide, whose life is it? In reality it is the person’s life, and if they are suffering from a terminal illness they should get to choose whether or not they want to suffer. One very aggressive form of a terminal illness is the Glioblastoma Multiforme. This type of brain tumor is more common than a person may think it is also very deadly (Markert). Who is to say a person can’t end their terminal illness, pain, and suffering? They are just like every other human being who wants to die with dignity.

Is the role of a medical professional to ensure the health and comfort of their patients, or to help them end their lives? Since Dr. Kevorkian assisted in the suicide of Janet Adkins in 1990, physician-assisted suicide (PAS) has been one of the most controversial issues in the medical field today. While some view it as an individual right, others view it as an unethical issue that goes against medical ethics and religious values. Mr. H. M. is an elderly man who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and no chance of improvement. After excruciating pain and suffering, he has decided to request physician-assisted death in his home state of Oregon. Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act (DDA) states that terminally ill patients are allowed to use

     Assisted suicide is one of the most controversial topics discussed among people every day. Everyone has his or her own opinion on this topic. This is a socially debated topic that above all else involves someone making a choice, whether it be to continue with life or give up hope and die. This should be a choice that they make themselves. However, In the United States, The land of the free, only one state has legalized assisted suicide. I am for assisted suicide and euthanasia. This paper will support my many feelings on this subject.

Do people have the right to die? Is there, in fact, a right to die? Assisted suicide is a controversial topic in the public eye today. Individuals choose their side of the controversy based on a number of variables ranging from their religious views and moral standings to political factors. Several aspects of this issue have been examined in books, TV shows, movies, magazine articles, and other means of bringing the subject to the attention of the public. However, perhaps the best way to look at this issue in the hopes of understanding the motives behind those involved is from the perspective of those concerned: the terminally ill and the disabled.