Should Physician Assisted Suicide Be Allowed?

Others have argued that physician assisted suicide is not ethically permissible, because it contradicts the traditional duty of physician’s to preserve life and to do no harm. Furthermore, many argue that if physician assisted suicide is legalized, abuses would take place, because as social forces condone the practice, it will lead to “slippery slope” that forces (PAS) on the disabled, elderly, and the poor, instead of providing more complex and expensive palliative care. While these arguments continue with no end in sight, more and more of the terminally ill cry out in agony, for the right to end their own suffering.

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.

However, there is immense criticism on the morality of the process, especially because the process denies a patient the right to natural death. The critics of the assisted suicide procedure argue that such a process devalues human life and tends to promote suicide as an alternative to personal suffering. By claiming that the procedure allows terminally ill patients to initiate dignity at death is flawed because the purpose of medical profession is to ensure a dignified life. According to the physicians’ code of ethics and the Hippocratic Oath, physicians are not allowed to do harm to their patients because their role is to allow a dignified health for members of the community. Consequently, legalization of Physician Assisted suicide that requires physicians to assist the patients to die is against their medical ethics. Quill, Cassel, & Meier (2010) provide that although the patients voluntarily ask the medical practitioners to assist in the process, the practitioners have a role to advise the patients against such a procedure. Besides, such a premise is bound to raise awareness of suicide as an alternative to suffering within the public domain, which may encourage such behavior among healthy members of the community that feel that they enjoy the freedom to make such a decision. On this basis, the negative moral implication of assisted suicide makes its legalization unworthy in the

Throughout the twentieth century, major scientific and medical advances have greatly enhanced the life expectancy of the average person. However, there are many instances where doctors can preserve life artificially. When society ponders over the idea of physician-assisted suicide, they most likely feel that the act itself would compare to murdering someone. Who really has the authority to say what is right or wrong when a loved one wants to end their life because of a terminal illness or a severe physical disability? Should Physician-assisted suicide be Legal in California to make it a euthanasia state like Oregon ? In the article titled “Nicest Lawmaker Touts Assisted Suicide,” by Clea Benson published The Bakersfield Californian in 2006, the author presents a Republican lawmaker Patty Berg, who is groom pushing a bill allowing assisted suicide be legal in California. Physician assisted suicide should be allowed to those who are terminally ill with a limited amount of time left to live, and shouldn’t be eligible for people who are young, healthy, or have plenty of time to live.

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.

In today's society, one of the most controversial issues is physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Many people feel that it is wrong for people, regardless of their health condition, to ask their health care provider to end their life; while others feel it is their right to be able to choose how and when they die. When a physician is asked to help a patient into death, they have many responsibilities that come along with that single question. Among those responsibilities are: providing valid information as to the terminal illness the patient is suffering, educating the patient as to what their final options may be, making the decision of whether or not to help the patient into death, and also if they do decide to help,

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.

Physician assisted suicide becoming legal will not make tons of people go out and use it. Haider Javed Warraich, a clinical researcher, defends this. His article “On Assisted Suicide, Going Beyond ‘Do No Harm’” argues how assisted suicide can be a solution for terminally ill patients who continue to lose control over their lives. Warraich analyzes how barely 35 percent of those who request the medication actually follow through with it.

Physician assisted suicide is a topic that promotes debates from all sides. At the core of the physician assisted suicide debate is the idea that people should have the right to commit suicide if they choose to. There are those who feel human beings should have complete control over what happens to their bodies. Then there are those who feel we should strive to save life at all costs. When you add in the idea of a physician who has sworn to do no harm helping a person to end their life, the debate gets even more complicated. One opponent of Physician assisted suicide is Richard Doerflinger. Doerflinger in his article, Assisted Suicide: Pro-Choice or Anti-Life?, uses the Utilitarian theory of the greater good to explain how the slippery slope idea means physician assisted suicide will ultimately bring about more harm than good. On the other side of the debate Anthony Back, Robert Baker, et al. defend the rights of individuals to choose to end their life with the help of a physician based on a patient’s right to self-govern.

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

Physician-assisted suicide is one of the most controversial subjects in the medical field. Whether the debate is, “Should a doctor be allowed to assist in someone’s suicide?” or, “Is it the right thing to do for a dying patient?” Seeing a loved one in pain can possibly be one of the hardest things to do. But what if they were given the option to the stop the suffering? Knowing that death may be months, weeks, or days away comes along with a lot of time at hospitals, pain, and suffering. Giving terminally ill patients an option of physician-assisted suicide allows the patient to be in charge of ending all their pain and suffering they will go through as well as passing at the comfort of their family at home and not in a hospital bed.

The process of assisted suicide, or physician-assisted death, is a hotly debated topic that still remains at the forefront of many national discussions today. Assisted suicide can be described as the suicide of patient by a physician-prescribed dose of legal drugs. The reason that this topic is so widely debated is that it infringes on several moral and religious values that many people in the United States have. But, regardless of the way that people feel, a person’s right to live is guaranteed to them in the United States Constitution, and this should extend to the right to end their own life as well. The reasons that assisted suicide should be legalized in all states is because it can ease not only the suffering of the individual, but the financial burden on the family that is supporting him/her. Regardless of opposing claims, assisted suicide should be an option for all terminally ill patients.

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.

The main points to argue in favor of physician assisted suicide are: the alleviation of the patients’ pain, the fact that active euthanasia is consented from the patients and it is their personal choice, the patients can die with dignity, the predetermined death will lessen healthcare costs for the family, and the physician is able to move on and help other patients in need.

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