Suffering from prolong pain, should anyone ever have to suffer? Pain is an unpleasant experience no one wants to go through. What if you have the chance to cut the pain short? Making a decision between long suffering and ending it early with the assist of a physician. Many people and religion frown upon this practice, but how can they share the pain that you are going through? The power to end one’s suffering should belong solely to the person that is suffering. The elderly and terminally ill should have the right to life or death without the influence of religious or legislation being involved. From aging comes illness and body function failure. Some elderly people “require the need for long-term institutional care” because they could not care for themselves and their family are too busy to care for them (Gordon). Other people, like I for instance, do not want to be a burden on my family and deplete their hard, earned money due to paying for my institutional care so we would rather choose to end our burden through assist suicide. Through advance technology and medical treatment, many “Americans are living much longer lives,” but “Americans also face prolonged illness at the end of life that can result in great suffering” because of this assist in dying has been a subject of great interest (Orentlicher). Suffering from long-term illness later in your life could be solved “by taking a lethal dose of prescription medication” which is an option many would chose (Orentlicher).
However, great pressure is experienced by elderly people to request euthanasia because many of them already feel a burden to their families and caregivers (Brogden, 2001). Individuals may argue that although medical technology can preserve their life, the financial burden and pain that is endured could be so immense that it would be better off for the family, society, and even the patient them self if they choose to die (Black
Although, pain can be excoriating and unfathomable thus, leaves the patient with no choice but to live with it and contemplate whether to terminate his or her life by performing euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. Apparently, the patient has right to die if he or she cannot endure physical or mental pain. Imagine, a patient is just barely lingering on the battle between life and death, one should able to make a decision to move into eternity with dignity, without suffering or pain, with their loved one present. So I could consider this technique as killing/letting die because the patient requests physician and physician has a duty to respect patient’s request by letting him/her to die. Killing or letting die does not matter as long as the patient requests to the physician.
Imagine a cancer patient on a short rode to death. The pain this patient is experiencing is unreal and unimaginable to most. The pain medicine that can be used does little to take the agony away. The doctors can put the patient in an induced coma, but what kind of living is that? It is not living. The patient does not want to go on. Is it so wrong to ask for a way out? With less than six months to live, the patient’s hope is gone. Many argue that euthanasia is not ethical, but is it really ethical to let someone live in constant, horrifying pain and agony? While in some cases having the right to die might result in patients giving up on life, physician-assisted suicide should be legalized in all fifty states for terminally ill patients with worsening or unbearable pain.
There has been an increase in the interest of euthanasia and assisted suicide for the terminally ill in recent years (Williams 1997). The most obvious reason for someone wanting to end their life is to end the suffering they are going through once the illness goes beyond being bearable.
Suffering at the end of life stems from multiple sources, including unyielding pain, depression, loss of personal identity, loss of control and dignity, fear of death, and/or fear of being a burden on others (AAHPM, 2007). The overwhelming symptoms lead many terminally ill patients to ask their doctors to help them die (Gorman, 2015). According to Dr. R. Sean Morrison, professor of geriatrics and palliative care medicine at Mt. Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine in New York, “their choice shouldn’t be an assisted death or living with intractable suffering” (as cited in Gorman, 2015). The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) (2007) strongly recommends that medical practitioners
As humans, we have the right to life. In Canada, in section 7 of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadians can expect “life, liberty and security of the person.” This means not only to simply exist, but have a minimum quality and value in each of our lives. Dying is the last important, intimate, and personal moment, and this process of dying is part of life. Whether death is a good or bad thing is not the question, as it is obviously inevitable, but as people have the right to attempt to make every event in their life pleasant, so they should have the right to make their dying as pleasant as possible. If this process is already very painful and unpleasant, people should have the right to shorten the unpleasantness. In February of this year, judges declared that the right to life does not mean individuals “cannot ‘waive’ their right to life.” Attempting suicide is not illegal in Canada, but the issue here is for those whose physical handicaps prevent them from doing so, and to allow access to a safe, regulated and painless form of suicide. It is a very difficult, sensitive and much-debated subject which seeks to balance the value of life with personal autonomy. In this essay, I will argue that the philosophical case for pro-euthanasia is more complete than those arguments against it due to the
A woman is thrashing in bed and crying from the pain her illness is causing her to feel. Her family rushes to find a nurse nearby to administer pain relieving medication. A nurse comes by to give palliative care to the woman that’s in agony. However, the strongest medication that’s at hand cannot relieve the pain without overdosing the patient. The terminally ill patient now has to live with intractable pain for the remaining days of her life. Physician Assisted Death is sometimes necessary in case state-of-the-art palliative care no longer works on the cancer patient. Terminal patients should have the option to control the circumstances surrounding their inevitable deaths with Physician Assisted Death to treat the pain.
One of the reasons opponents may propose against physician assisted death and Euthanasia has to do with the consent of the patient. There is a worry that because the patient is in an insurmountable amount of pain their judgment will be altered. Conversely, if the patient is not in insurmountable pain, then they are too inebriated from pain medication to make an intelligible decision. In either of the proposed situation the patient is unable to give consent knowledgeably (Class notes, 10/28). This argument, however, disregards the possibility of finding the balance of medication and pain for a patient to create a rational decision. Through discovering a balance of tolerable pain, the patient is then able to create
People who die of a prolonged illness or had a predictable steady decline due to a condition like heart disease, diabetes, or Alzheimer’s disease account for ninety percent of deaths each year (Girsh 45). Most of the people who died suffered greatly because of their disease. However, if euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide was legal, the suffering could have been severely lessened. People who oppose both options have many reasons why euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide should not be legal. The Hippocratic Oath, the fear they could be abused by the poor, Nazi-styled teachings might return, or people may feel coerced, and the right to die is not an actual right are a few examples of what the people who oppose euthanasia or physician-assisted
The next few themes of this article include the discussion of pain, loss of pleasure in life, and the right time to die. The carers felt responsible to prevent their loved ones from experiencing pain and suffering all of their later years of life. They stated that caring for someone they loved with dementia that was extremely unhappy with their quality of life brought up ideas of assisted suicide. They exclaimed that seeing their patient disintegrate in quality of life and in overall health that it was difficult to not consider assisted suicide. Several participants came to a conclusion that their relative was strictly waiting to die because they had suffered enough which made them want to end the pain for them.
Barriers to effective pain management exist. These barriers include: religious belief, poor practice by doctors, patient fear, and incorrect doses of medication. The issues of the barriers are being addressed with great efforts to remove them. Removing these barriers is the answer to full pain management on the opposing side to physician assisted suicide (Balch, Waters 7). The majority of patients requesting assisted suicide due to pain decided against suicide after their pain was treated properly. “...the availability of assisted suicide may lead to a decrease in or failure to increase the availability of pain management…” (Harned 515).
The author is extremely compelled that aid in dying should be legal in every single state and that more than a minority of people should support or accept this controversial topic. Span is constrained by the belief that the federal government should cover the cost of the lethal drugs because many patients cannot pay such a high fee (Span). This causes a gap to form between some readers because Span ties a split political viewpoint to aid in dying and everyone is not going to see eye to eye with her solution to the high fee of the medication. The author gives an authoritative and a compelling argument about the positive side of assisted suicide such as the patient’s peaceful death and the choice they can make concerning the way they die (Span). In doing so, she uses first hand experiences from differing viewpoints of aid in dying including the doctors’, patient’s, and family
Humans have the obligation to provide and care for their loved ones, whether it is their child or parent. For this reason, having the ability to take away one’s own life because of health related issues should be carefully thought out by the family and affected person. As individuals grow older, the body naturally degenerates and its effects can be very painful for the person and their family members. There are many views regarding how a family and the affected person should go about the ultimate decision of taking one’s own life. John Hardwig believes that as we grow older there is a “duty to die” before one 's illnesses would cause death, in the absence of any terminal illness and sometimes when one would prefer to live. In his essay, “Is There a Duty to Die?” he explains why he thinks that there is a need to take away one’s life to benefit others. Felicia Ackerman disagrees completely in her essay, “For Now Have I My Death: The “Duty to Die” versus the Duty to Help the Ill Stay Alive.” She believes instead that there is a, “duty to aid” and the amount of aid ultimately depends on the family circumstance. Ackerman’s view is illustrated by Jerome Groopman, MD in The Anatomy of Hope where he talks about a man named George Griffin and his success in the fight of a very serious and rare stomach cancer through family support and hope. The decision to take away one’s own life may be very challenging and complex, but there is an absolute obligation for the family to be involved
Euthanasia and physician assisted suicide are both types of medical assistance aiding in ending a suffering patient’s life. This pain may be due to a terminal illness and suffering as well as those in an irreversible coma. This practice of doctor assisted suicide is illegal in many countries, but is increasing in popularity as people start to recognize the positive aspects that euthanasia has to offer for those that fit the criteria. Euthanasia is essential for those, placed in such life diminishing situations, and whom no longer want to experience suffering. This is where the issue gets complicated, and many religious groups argue that individuals should not have the legal right to choose whether they get to die or not, but that it is simply in God’s hands. Suffering patients argue that they should be given the right to choose whether or not they have to experience this suffering, to end their life with the dignity they still have, and to alleviate the stress that their deteriorating life conditions have on their families, themselves and the entire healthcare system. Therefore, despite the many arguments, euthanasia can have a very positive impact on the lives and families of suffering individuals, as well as the Canadian healthcare system.
Margaret P. Battin’s “Euthanasia: The Way We Do It, the Way They Do It” discusses the occurrence and practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide in three first-world, industrialized, developed nations: The Netherlands, Germany, and the United States. All three of these countries have one important factor in common that makes them ideal for studying euthanasia: aging populations who primarily die of degenerative diseases, rather than parasitic or infectious diseases (Battin 579). In the United States, outright euthanasia is illegal. Rather, the accepted form of