Physician Assisted Suicide Pros And Cons

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.

Experts in pain management believe that if such pain can be relieved that in most cases, patients who request assisted suicide will withdraw their request once those issues are addressed. It might be the case that some patients who have requested physician assisted suicide are suffering from depression due to their circumstances and have not properly treated for this. Although this is not meant to be used for depression; in states where physician assisted suicide it is legal there is no psychological counseling required. Proponents of physician assisted suicide would argue that it gives the patient the power to choose when they will die but this isn't the case because many people may feel pressure from family who don’t want to take on the responsibility of caring for a terminally ill member. The patient may feel pressure not to financially burden their family with medical

Abstract: This paper discusses the medical ethics of Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS). Focusing on the ideas of legal vs illegal, the different views of PAS will both be addressed. While active euthanasia is illegal, passive euthanasia, or allowing natural death, is completely legal everywhere. PAS will help patients end suffering for themselves at the end of their lives, as well as the family's. The price of the drug may be expensive but the price of medical treatments continues to rise. The Hippocratic Oath does not support the aid in ending a life, however it has been changed in the past. Many citizens are afraid that is PAS was considered legal, it would grow into something even more illegal being debated. Also, the religious aspect of the end of life had conflicting views as some believe PAS is ending suffering, a good deed, and other believe PAS is not respecting a human life. PAS is only legal in seven states but has gained the attention of many others and other places around the world.

Assisted suicide is when you give someone else permission like a physician, to kill you. Assisted suicide is legal in at least six states (Tolle, 1996) and there is lots of people who wanted to die because the disease they might have at the moment is just too much for them. If a patient that wanted to die the they would either talk to a physician or their doctor and give the doctor permission to just kill the patient. Assisted suicide can only happen when your medication is not working and the pain from the sickness you have is just abdominale. There was a case that was about how a man who was going through chemotherapy he didn't want to go through it so he talked to his doctor about assisted suicide. They decided to

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.

Physician-assisted suicide devalues human life. First, PAS is against the laws of something called nature. Second, PAS debate is not new today. It had been debated long time ago in the world before World War Two. According to 30 Logical Reasons Against Assisted Suicide: “The first Nazi victims were terminally ill people.” They were called “useless eaters” (Clair). Those who are terminally ill are looked down upon and considered as a great burden on society, therefore there was no reason for them to live. It is also not right with the long-term illness wishes to terminate their life as soon as possible. Not long ago, near where I lived there was with a man serious cancer. After six months of treatment in hospital, the doctors said patients will

As adults, one does not consider suicide and the thought of it goes away; however if you have stage four cancer, you may consider physician assisted suicide. Physician assisted suicide is a complicated and controversial topic around the United States and most likely the world. Many people across the United States are opposed to the legalization of P.A.S, others justify it as dying with dignity and therefore trying to legalize P.A.S. The people with the illness may have hope for their lives but others may be at that certain stage of illness were nothing can really help them and have no hope in living as much as they use to, so they may just want to end it all and not have to suffer anymore. States all around the

Physician-assisted suicides (PAS) successful legalization in multiple locations, including four U.S. states, proves that opponents’ predictions of PAS leading to medical misconduct are inaccurate. Jacob Appel, a doctor in New York City, is quoted explaining, “ Despite predictions that legalization would lead to abuse or to decrease in palliative care, jurisdictions that have sanctioned the process, like the Netherlands and Oregon, have shown that a system of assisted suicide can be implemented responsibly” (qtd. in “The Right to Die: Do terminally ill patients have a right to die with the assistance of a physician?”). Appel’s claim is corroborated by Lewis Cohen who says,

In today’s society, suicide, and more controversially, physician assisted suicide, is a hotly debated topic amongst both every day citizens and members of the medical community. The controversial nature of the subject opens up the conversation to scrutinizing the ethics involved. Who can draw the line between morality and immorality on such a delicate subject, between lessening the suffering of a loved one and murder? Is there a moral dissimilarity between letting someone die under your care and killing them? Assuming that PAS suicide is legal under certain circumstances, how stringent need be these circumstances? The patient must be terminally ill to qualify for voluntary physician-assisted suicide, but in the eyes of the non-terminal patients with no physical means to end their life, the ending of their pain through PAS may be worth their death; at what point is the medical staff disregarding a patient’s autonomy? Due to the variability of answers to these questions, the debate over physician-assisted suicide is far from over. However, real life occurrences happen every day outside the realm of debate and rhetoric, and decisions need to be made.

Physician-assisted suicide, “suicide by a patient facilitated by means or by information provided by a physician aware of the patient's intent” (Merriam Webster), has been debated over for many years. It has often been called a death with dignity, “but there’s nothing dignified about the methods they advocate” (Torr et al. 56). Physician-assisted suicide has been a widely publicized controversy, and yet there have been many misunderstandings about the issue. It is not only a means of death for a comatose or dying patient, but it is also a way to kill people with depression and even infants in some places of the world. Although others may argue that physician-assisted suicide is an opportunity for the elderly and the disabled to make a choice about their death, euthanasia would threaten them more than give them freedom. Permitting this malicious practice does not just discard religion and ethics, but it also desensitizes society to killing, advertising physician-assisted suicide as a simple solution.

This great country, the land of the free, gave each and every person the right to make their own choices. This independence consists of each aspect of a citizen’s life, as well as health care. With independence comes a certain liability, this is also accurate in conditions of physician-assisted suicide. The constant resistance among those supporting and those divergent to this issue have wreaked havoc on the health care field; what is morally and ethically correct? In reality, physician-assisted suicide is never morally or ethically tolerable despite any conditions. It is not only a direct infringement of a physician’s Hippocratic Oath, but also unconstitutionally requisite. Physician-assisted suicide could also lead to superfluous fatalities in order to lessen various health care expenses. Citizens of the United States are warranted the highest of admiration, while taking part in the health care system; approving physician-assisted suicide deteriorates the state of American health care.

Euthanasia, physician assisted suicide, peaceful death, there are plenty of names for it, but not one single name gives an accurate representation of just what exactly takes place. “We categorically reject the moral relativism, the utilitarian view that what is right or wrong depends just on weighing whether benefits outweigh risks and harms, and in particular, that this is only a matter of personal judgment” (Boudreau & Somerville , 2014). Euthanasia is a broad topic with an unimaginable numbers of opinions good and bad. In order to take a step closer in the right direction there needs to be a level of agreement reached between opposing sides. The whole subject is based on what you, he, she, or I think is morally, religiously, and politically correct, but ultimately the person dying should be who decides whether they are going for right or wrong reasons.

Imagine a person you deeply care about unable to walk, unable to see, unable to speak and, can barely breathe. This person is in such unbearable pain that they can’t even cry. They are battling a sickness with no cure that is only going to get worse and shortly lead to death. There is nothing left to do. Could ending their life medically be the answer to their pain? But, what if that wasn’t even an option because it was illegal.This situation is the reality for many people.

In 2012, 804,000 people had committed suicide. In other words, one person killed him or herself in every 40 seconds.(“Japan’s suicide rate”) Since death has always been obscure to humanity as none of them know what it truly is, many of them consider it to be unimaginably frightening and a notion of taking one’s own life appear them to be incomprehensible. However, for a terminally ill patient who is going through agonizing treatments, death can mean relief from endless pain. To those people, physician-assisted suicide may be desirable as it provides relatively painless death. Physician-assisted suicide, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “suicide by a patient facilitated by means or information (as a drug prescription or indication of the lethal dosage) provided by a physician who is aware of how the patient intends to use such means or information”.(“Physician-assisted”) Some people seem to misunderstand that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide have identical meaning. However, that is a misconception as who puts an end to life is different. While it is usually a doctor who administrates its final act in euthanasia, the conductor is a patient in physician-assisted suicide although a physician is mainly involved by providing a mean of killing oneself. Some say one should live as long as the life goes on while others say one shall be allowed to die under some circumstances.

Physician-Assisted Suicide is when a doctor/ physician gives the patient a prescription and the knowledge of how to take said prescription that would end the patient's life. “Most people who ask for the prescription never use it, they just use it for comfort.”(Dick 194. There are really only two main arguments for this topic. Those two arguments are: “It’s my life i can do what i want” and “It’s against my morals, or it undermines the hippocratic principles of medicine.” Physician assisted suicide should be legal everywhere, and everyone should be able to have the option to use it.