Physician Assisted Suicide Hypothesis

Physician-assisted suicide should be legal nationwide. As a former hospital employee, I know first-hand that some diseases can cause so much disability and pain that patients want to end their lives because they have had enough. Something dear to me is personal autonomy, a right of all people. If the patient is competent and wants to end their life, and a health care provider is willing to humanely help end that patient's life, then physician-assisted suicide should be legal and be performed, per the individual's wishes.

A. Restatement of Thesis: Overall with current situations happening around the world Euthanasia and Assisted suicide has become a very controversial topic, however there are many interpretations that should be looked upon before deciding that huge decision.

Physician-assisted suicide is controversial in healthcare and political realms alike. Currently, this end-of-life option is practiced in five states within the United States. Social concerns regarding assisted suicide revolve around ethical quandaries; providing the means to a patient’s death is contradictory to ethical principles of healthcare providers. Political concerns surrounding the legalization of assisted suicide include disparities in healthcare that may lead to certain populations choosing assisted suicide and the stagnation of current care options. While there is no succinct manner in which to declare assisted suicide right or wrong, each individual must address the social and political concerns surrounding the issue when voting for legislation to legalize assisted suicide or pursuing the option for themselves.

Doctor assisted suicide has been a controversial topic for decades. It is placing value on life and death. This paper examines doctor assisted suicide by using peer reviewed articles that address many of the social and political issues surrounding doctor assisted suicide, including key factors such as the roles that technology and family play in a patient 's decision to use assisted suicide. Brody (1995) gives an in depth view of how doctor assisted suicide works. Emanuel (1997) takes a closer look into the parameters that must be present to qualify for doctor assisted suicide.

Public support for physician assisted suicide was confined to the limited situation where a terminally ill patient would ask a doctor for help to commit suicide. Fifty four percent thought that doctors should

Many individuals agree with the concept of euthanasia. They argue that assisted suicide helps patients perish with dignity. A physician 's job is to relieve pain from their patients, but they cannot do that if there is no cure. The only way to relieve their pain is to give them lethal drugs if they want it. Assisted suicide also respects individual autonomy,

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

To legalize it; Or to let people suffer? In the year of 2015, sixty-eight percent of people said that they deemed it to be morally acceptable, while thirty-two percent of people were against it. This has increased in ten points from 2014, and the support came from eighteen to thirty-four year olds. The most important thing that plays a large part in these people's decisions to support or reject, is religion. It was shown that those who have attended church on a regular basis are seventy-four percent less likely to support euthanasia. Another factor, is what it is called. The person taking the poll asked about the subject in two different ways; Physician assisted suicide or Euthanasia? Fifty-eight percent of Americans favored this idea when it was referred to without using the word suicide. Currently, Only five states have had this idea legalized and put into action in their hospitals and health centers. Oregon ,Washington, Montana, California, and Vermont. These states fought for it to become legal, due to the amounts of people suffering in their

Some people believe that legalizing physician-assisted suicide will cost less harm. For example, back them patines suffer like crazy and now in the modern suffer less. (“Should Physician-Assisted Suicide Be Legal?”).Yes

This paper evaluates current arguments for and against physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in the United States using the legislature in Oregon as the primary example. This subject is extremely controversial and there are logical and emotional arguments for either side. PAS is currently only legal in Oregon, Washington State, Montana and Vermont. This issue is coming to the forefront of politics as medical technology advances. It is essential to analyze both sides of the argument in order to take a position on the legalization of physician-assisted suicide.

* Researchers at Duke University recently surveyed hundreds of frail elderly patients receiving outpatient treatment and their families. The elderly patients themselves strongly opposed physician-assisted suicide: only 34% favored legalization, with support even lower among female and black patients. But 56% of their younger relatives favored it, and they were usually wrong in predicting the elderly patients' views.

It is thought that the presumed vulnerable would be left helpless if physician-assisted suicide were legalized, though evidence shows this claim is false. People presumed vulnerable to physician assisted suicide are the uninsured, the poor, people with little education, people older than 80, women, people with mental illnesses, people with physical disabilities, minors and racial and ethnic minorities. There is no evidence supporting the claim that any of these groups have been adversely affected since physician-assisted suicide was legalized in Oregon in 1997. Since the law was passed in 1997, 460 patients have died from ingesting physician prescribed medication under the Death with Dignity Act (Department of Human Services, 2010). In 2009 a total of 59 deaths were from physician-assisted suicide; 98.3 percent were white, 48.3 percent had at least a bachelors degree, 98.7 percent had health insurance, and 78 percent were between 55 and 84 years-old (Department of Human Services, 2010). These statistics clearly show the vulnerable have not been poorly affected by the legalization of physician-assisted suicide.

     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.

Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are actions that hit at the core of what it means to be human - the moral and ethical actions that make us who we are, or who we ought to be. Euthanasia, a subject that is so well known in the twenty-first century, is subject to many discussions about ethical permissibility which date back to as far as ancient Greece and Rome , where euthanasia was practiced rather frequently. It was not until the Hippocratic School removed it from medical practice. Euthanasia in itself raises many ethical dilemmas – such as, is it ethical for a doctor to assist a terminally ill patient in ending his life? Under what circumstances, if any, is euthanasia considered ethically appropriate? More so, euthanasia raises

In the United States today, there is a considerable amount of debate of whether or not physician-assisted suicide should be legalized. Many oppose physician-assisted suicide because they view it to be morally and ethically wrong. Similarly, many support the legalization of physician-assisted suicide because they believe human beings have the right to determine when and how they die. Personally, I believe human beings have the right to determine when they die and that the government should not keep individuals who are in extreme pain and only have a few months to live from ending their life with dignity. Through this paper, I am going to explore the many sides of physician-assisted suicide.