The Debate Over Euthanasia And Physician Assisted Suicide Essay

Today, there is a large debate over the situation and consequences of euthanasia. Euthanasia is the act of ending a human’s life by lethal injection or the stoppage of medication, or medical treatment. It has been denied by most of today’s population and is illegal in the fifty states of the United States. Usually, those who undergo this treatment have a disease or an “unbearable” pain somewhere in the body or the mind. Since there are ways, other than ending life, to stop pain caused by illness or depression, euthanasia is immoral, a disgrace to humanity, according to the Hippocratic Oath, and should be illegal throughout the United States.

Suicide is one person’s personal decision; physician-assisted suicide is a patient who is not capable of carrying the task out themselves asking a physician for access to lethal medication. What people may fail to see however is that the physician is not the only healthcare personnel involved; it may include, but is not limited to, a physician, nurse, and pharmacist. This may conflict with the healthcare worker’s own morals and there are cases in which the patient suffers from depression, or the patient is not receiving proper palliative care. Allowing physician-assisted suicide causes the physician to become entangled in an ethical and moral discrepancy and has too many other issues surrounding it for it to be legal.

Assisted suicide brings a debate that involves professional, legal and ethical issues about the value of the liberty versus the value of life. However, before conceive an opinion about this topic is necessary know deeply its concept. Assisted suicide is known as the act of ending with the life of a terminal illness patients for end with their insupportable pain. Unlike euthanasia, the decision is not made by the doctor and their families, but by the patient. Therefore, doctors should be able to assist the suicide of their patients without being accused of committing a criminal offense. This conception is supported by three points of view. The first point defenses the autonomy of people, which covers the right of people to make decision

The word euthanasia, when translated, means "good death." Physician- assisted suicide is a fast, painless death that every terminally-ill person should have the liberty to choose. Euthanasia is not a drawn out process like many terminally-ill patients have to deal with. However most people want to die at home in peace and euthanasia gives people this right. The author indicates that more than half of Americans die in the hospital and that is a sad occurrence (Kim 171). PAS and euthanasia allows patients freedom from physical pain and emotional suffering. According to Willke, proponents of euthanasia are quick to accuse doctors of not letting a patient die in peace (1). The author states there are two different definitions for euthanasia. First voluntary active euthanasia is intentionally administering medications to cause the patient's death at the

     On April 13, 1999, the most recognized physician performing assisted suicide, Dr, Jack Kevorkian, was sentenced to ten to twenty-five years in prison for second degree murder and three to seven years for delivery of a controlled substance. Assisted suicide happens when a person commits suicide with the help of someone else. Physician assisted suicide is generally pain free and, as some would say, the most peaceful way to die. Should it be the right of terminally ill patients to decide if they want to seek out physician assisted suicide to end their intolerable pain, or should it be up to the courts?

A policeman witnesses a man trapped underneath a burning truck. Desperate and in pain, the man asks the policeman to shoot him and save him the pain of dying a slow and insufferable death. As a result, he shoots. The policeman’s dilemma is commonly referenced in support of physician-assisted-suicide, or PAS. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are interchangeable terms which both lead to the death of an individual. Voluntary PAS is a medical professional, usually a physician, who provides medication or other procedures with the intention of ending the patient’s life. Voluntary PAS is the administration of medicine with the explicit consent from the patient. In terms of this paper, we focus on voluntary physician-assisted suicide in the

Should individuals hold the privilege to survive or expire, conferring to their personal perception of a “good life” even if they are not hurting anyone else? The exceedingly divided dispute around the procedure of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) asks this very question. Although PAS is reasonably fresh to the sphere of moral matters it is often the main topic in many discussions about proper healthcare and palliative care. Physician-assisted suicide was initially permitted in the state of Oregon when the state passed its Death with Dignity Act in 1994 (Kotva, 2016). The Act requires that “a doctor provides a patient with a lethal dose of medication or another way of causing death, but the patient, not the doctor, ends his or her own life” (Mosser, 2013, sec. 6.3). The definition of physician-assisted suicide also embraces the notion that patients understand what they are consuming and how to commit the act in which they are requesting i.e. self-injection or a prescribed drug. Unlike euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide requires the patient, rather than the physician, to carry out the final action preceding to the patient’s passing. The influence following the act was essentially designed to provide coherent, incurably ill individuals an opportunity to conclude their existence on their own conditions, at the same time maintaining the patient’s self-worth and circumventing an unconceivable amount of pain in which there would be no alleviation, other than

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.

A person should have the right to choose what medical interventions he or she would or would not have implemented in a life threatening situation, but euthanasia and physician assisted suicide (PAS) does not align with the code of ethics that health care providers are sworn to and, therefore, should not be practiced. Research has shown that only a fraction of individuals who qualify for end-of-life (EOL) care options, such as hospice, have heard about what options are available to them. Patients who seek out interventions such as euthanasia and PAS only do so because they feel that it is the only thing that will end their suffering. If such individuals were well informed about just how comprehensive, individualized, and effective EOL services such as hospice can be, euthanasia and PAS would quickly move down on the list of possibilities. We must, as a society, strive to inform and encourage those suffering with terminal illness, not simply end suffering by ending life itself.

If everyone has the right to live, then everyone should also have the right to die. Physicians assisted suicide, also known as Euthanasia, is not only a currently expanding concept around the world, but it is also a concept that is changing the options for terminally ill people and their families immensely. Not only should physician assisted suicide be legal in all states, but it should be promoted and encouraged around the world. People have the right to know their options and be informed of what they can and can't do with their own body.

     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.

The issue at hand is whether physician-assisted suicide should be legalized for patients who are terminally ill and/or enduring prolonged suffering. In this debate, the choice of terms is central. The most common term, euthanasia, comes from the Greek words meaning "good death." Sidney Hook calls it "voluntary euthanasia," and Daniel C. Maguire calls it "death by choice," but John Leo calls it "cozy little homicides." Eileen Doyle points out the dangers of a popular term, "quality-of-life." The choice of terms may serve to conceal, or to enhance, the basic fact that euthanasia ends a human life. Different authors choose different terms, depending on which side of the issue

Euthanasia which is sometimes referred to as mercy killing is defined as the act of intentionally ending a person's life so as to help relieve suffering or pain. Currently in the United States, euthanasia is legal only in 5 states. It is my opinion that euthanasia and assisted suicide should be legalized in all 50 states. However if it were to become legalized, I believe it should also be highly regulated. By regulated I mean steps should be in place to prevent abuse and ensure that a person suffering from a long term fatal disease is mentally capable of making such a decision on their own. Also the procedure should be medically monitored and carried out by a certified physician if possible. But in the case of a physician not being able to be present, the terminally ill person should have the right to have a family member assist them. Consequently, any individual who is suffering from a debilitating disease that is deemed terminal could be given the option to end their own lives. Further, physicians or family members who wanted to assist them to this end would not have to worry about being

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

     On June 4, 1990, Janet Adkins committed suicide. She killed herself under the supervision of a man named Jack Kevorkian. Again and again, Kevorkian set up machines and killed patients that were supposedly terminally ill. He escaped punishment for years, but on March 26, 1999, Kevorkian was incarcerated for second-degree murder. (Online,99) He had developed many friends and many enemies. One of his followers was a woman who had developed coronary artery disease. Her name was Donna White. She thought about suicide often, especially when her pain was incredibly intense. Help found her before euthanasia did. A hospice care facility heard about her plot to commit suicide, and they found help for her. They