The Death Of Assisted Suicide

The history of euthanasia can be traced back to the classical antiquity times when many Greek and Roman philosophers considered suicide a “good death” and an appropriate response to a variety of circumstances (Dowbiggin 7). During that period, people would kill themselves through various means such as fasting, drinking poison, and hanging themselves. Unexplained pain due to certain diagnosis caused a spike in suicide which allowed the given

When a person takes steps toward the commission of a crime and has a specific intent to commit the crime, but for unforeseen reasons is unable to complete the crime the person has committed the crime of Attempt (Jirard, 2009). In the case of the State of Indiana versus Donald J. Haines, emergency personnel including two police officers [Dennis and Hayworth] along with emergency medical technicians [Garvey and Robinson] responded to Mr. Haines’s apartment for a report of a possible suicide that just occurred. When officers Dennis and Hayworth arrived at Haines’s apartment they discovered him lying face down in a pool of blood. Officer Dennis noticed that both of Haines’s wrists were cut and were bleeding. When Haines heard the paramedics he stood up, and began screaming at Dennis that he has AIDS and that he should be left to die. Dennis advised Haines that he was there to help him, and Haines told Dennis that he wanted to fuck him so that he could give him AIDS. Haines than told Dennis that he was going to utilize his wounds to spray blood on him, and began to jerk back and forth causing his infected blood to get into Dennis’ mouth and eyes. Haines told Dennis that he could not deal with having AIDS, but that he was going to make him deal with it.

7. Delaware Code Ann. Tit. 11, § 645 – A person is guilty of promoting suicide when the person intentionally causes or aids another person to attempt suicide, or when the person intentionally aids another person to commit suicide.;

Facts: The state of Washington passed a law that made it a crime to assist in a suicide that takes place within the state. The crime is listed as “promoting a suicide attempt” and is classified as a felony offense. In order for a person to be convicted of this crime it has to be proven that the defendant knowingly caused or aided another person in an attempt to commit suicide. In January 1994 Dr. Glucksberg along with four other doctors, three terminally ill patients who died before the case reached the

Petitioners in this case are the State of Washington and its Attorney General. Respondents Harold Glucksberg, Abigail Halperin, Thomas A. Preston, and Peter Shalit, are medical physicians who practice in the State of Washington, along with three gravely ill, pseudonymous plaintiffs who have since died and the non-profit organization that counsel people considering physician-assisted suicide, Compassion in Dying, sued in the United States District Court, seeking a declaration that Wash Rev. Code 9A.36.060(1) (1994) was unconstitutional. Washington vs. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997). The Washington State statute provided a person was guilty of the felony of promoting a suicide attempt when the person knowingly caused or aided another person

      The practice of physician assisted suicide is not really suicide at all. There seems to be four distinct types of cases that deal with doctor-assisted suicide. The first is when life-saving treatment is discontinued. This includes shutting off or removing a patient from equipment used in keeping the individual alive-including both feeding and other equipment to prolong an individual's life. The second case involves not being placed on life saving equipment initially. The third type is that the patient requests a lethal drug or drug dosage, which he can take at a time of his choosing. The fourth case type is when a patient is incapable of taking the drug himself and asks the physician to administer it.

While doing this research, a relevant statute under the California state 's penal code, which has been around since 1874 indicates anyone who tries to assist a person in suicide in whatever capacity, including

However, Section 241(b) of the Criminal Code lists it a criminal offense to assist another person commit suicide. Having said, Sue Rodriguez applied to the Supreme Court of British Columbia to strike down Section 241(b) of the Criminal Code, arguing that it infringed her rights and freedoms under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled to dismiss her application, many others in the court affirmed the judge’s decision. Furthermore, she proceeded to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, where within a few hours, the appeal too, was dismissed.

Physician Assisted Suicide is when “a doctor helps a person to commit suicide by providing drugs

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

For a terminal patient, life can become very painful and uncomfortable. For the majority of those patients, the end isn’t very bright. Patients with terminal illnesses may resort to Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) as a means to end their their life. In this paper, we will be discussing what PAS is, why patients may use it, and how it affects the human body. We will also look into the history of PAS and how that history translates to the present day. Finally, we will be looking at the legality of PAS in the United States.

In its simplest definition, active suicide occurs when a doctor or medical staff person prescribes a lethal amount of medication with the intent of helping a person commit suicide.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia in the United States has been widely known due to many instances where patients have tried practiced their rights and have been prohibited from actually going through with their decision.

Euthanasia was first introduced in ancient Greece and Rome around the fifth century B.C. Occasionally, abortions and mercy killings were performed. 1 The Hippocratic Oath is an oath taken by physicians, which states that the physician will treat the ill to the best of their ability, to preserve a patient’s privacy and to teach the secrets of medicine to the next generation. 2 Many of the physicians didn’t follow the Hippocratic Oath and if a patient asked to be poisoned, certain physicians would comply with the patient’s request. 1 Euthanasia wasn’t a topic of discussion in the Middle Ages and if someone committed suicide, the law in Europe was that the body had to be “dragged down the streets or nailed to a barrel and left to drift downriver” (procon.org). 1Euthanasia was a big topic of discussion during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries but people continued to turn down euthanasia and assisted suicide. 1 In 1828, the first American law made assisted suicide illegal. 1 It wasn’t until the 1930’s that people started to support euthanasia in the United States and in England. 1 Americans grew less fond of euthanasia around World War II when Hitler and the Nazis killed hundreds of thousands of people using euthanasia. 1Their tactics included starvation, gassing and administering drugs to their prisoners. 1 In the late twentieth and twenty first century, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia. 1Belgium soon followed the

In the past, euthanasia was practiced in the U.S mainly by with-holding treatment and allowing for a passive death. Back then the act of killing was not an option, but actions were passively taken to indirectly provide death. The earliest American statute explicitly to outlaw assisting suicide was enacted in New York in 1828. Until about the nineteenth century, euthanasia was considered as a mere method of gentle death. Soon the many controversies started to arise on whether the act should be allowed or not. It was around the time of Darwin’s theories on evolution and social conditions in which favor towards euthanasia began sprouting again. His theories on evolution challenged the idea that God created us, and that it was his right to choose our fate. By the 20th century, the New York State Medical Association began its efforts to legalize euthanasia. Even though euthanasia is illegal in all states of the United States, Physician aid in dying (PAD), or assisted suicide, is legal in the states of Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Vermont. What differentiates the two is how the lethal dose is administered. Euthanasia would entitle the physician to take lead, whereas PAD requires the patient to self-administer the medication.