The Importance Of Legalizing Assisted Suicide

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.

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.

Additionally, the term “euthanasia” does not mean the same thing as assisted suicide. Often people confuse these processes when they differ immensely. Despite this, they remain similar in their resulting death of a human life through the help of a physician. Euthanasia is the direct killing of a patient by a physician by means of lethal injection and it is completely controlled by the doctor. On the other hand, patients in assisted suicide have full control over the process that leads to their death. For this reason, procedures of these sorts must be eliminated as medical treatments and should not be authorized. Consequently, physician assisted suicide has been proven to lead to euthanasia in some cases. Assisted suicide should become illegal in all fifty states of the United States of America because it raises religious concern, endorses legalized murder, puts vulnerable people at risk of abuse, and

Currently, six states have enacted the death-with-dignity law allowing a terminally ill patient the right to choose how their life ends after obtaining permission from those in authority. In 44 states, state law prohibits assisted suicide and an active participant considered as committing a criminal offence. The U.S. Supreme Court protects a patient’s liberty to refuse medical treatment, but continues to side with the government’s interest in preserving life outweighing a person’s right to assisted-suicide. According to the U.S. Code, “Assisted suicide, euthanasia, and mercy killing have been criminal offenses throughout the United States and, under current law, it would be unlawful to provide services in support of such illegal activities.” (U.S. Code)

Currently, physician-assisted suicide or death is illegal in all states except Oregon, Vermont, Montana and Washington. Present law in other states express that suicide is not a crime, but assisting in suicide is. Supporters of legislation legalizing assisted suicide claim that the moral right to life should encompass the right to voluntary death. Opponents of assisted suicide claim that society has a moral and civic duty to preserve the lives of innocent persons. There is a slippery slope involving the legalizing assisted suicide. Concern that assisted suicide allowed on the basis of mercy or compassion, can and will lead to the urging of the death for morally unjustifiable reasons is

Many people in the world are suffering from illness that cannot be cured. They live their last days in pain and suffering wondering when and why it happened to them. Instead of suffering, many people dream of suicide to take their pain away but they know no one would understand. In very few states, it is legal for people to get assistance to put them out of their pain and suffering. It is called assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is the help from a physician to end their patients’ lives with their permission. The patient must have a terminal illness with less than six months to live to qualify. Many people are against assisted suicide because they believe that it is just a cover for murder. People should be thought of as dying with dignity

Physician-assisted suicide is a topic that hits home to many people, both in the United States and across the world. Currently, five states have legalized physician-assisted suicide in the United States and it is crucial that every state reconsiders their stance on the issue. Each state needs to look at the pros and cons, as well as the implications of their decision on their stance on physician-assisted suicide. Citizens also have a critical role, as they must tell their legislators their stance on physician-assisted suicide so that the legislators can properly represent their states. This paper looks to show the major arguments for both the groups that support physician-assisted suicide as well as the groups that oppose physician-assisted suicide, while also taking other issues into consideration, such as different pressures legalization of physician-assisted suicide would have on different demographics.

Choosing to die with the assistance of a physician is a much debated controversial issue in the states. Assisted suicide is where a patient with a terminal disease choose to take their life to relieve their suffering, sometimes with the aid of a physician, and is legal in only five states. Assisted suicide is “legal in Washington, Oregon, California, Vermont and Bernalillo County,New Mexico(Death with).” This option should be available to patients in all states, because terminally ill patients should have the choice to end their suffering if their pain becomes unbearable. Terminal patients should be able to die on their own terms.

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

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.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld court decisions in Washington and New York states that criminalized physician-assisted suicide on July 26, 1997.12 They found that the Constitution did not provide any “right to die,” however, they allowed individual states to govern whether or not they would prohibit or permit physician-assisted suicide. Without much intervention from the states individuals have used their right to refuse medical treatment resulting in controversial passive forms of euthanasia being used by patients to die with dignity such as choosing not to be resuscitated, stopping medication, drinking, or eating, or turning off respirators.9

In 1776, our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence, guaranteeing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This brings up the question, if you have the right to life, do you have the right to death? After all, it is your life and no one else’s, right? This is the question at the very center of the controversial debate on the legalization of physician assisted suicide in the United States. Anti-physician assisted suicide groups often argue that no individual truly wants to end their life. However, that statement does not ring true to those who would actually utilize physician assisted suicide- terminally ill patients. Imagine being diagnosed with a terminal disease, followed by months and sometimes years of treatment that brings insufferable side effects due to countless medicines, drugs and surgeries only to be told that you have a minimal chance of survival and will have to undergo treatment for the rest of your life. This is the bleak reality for many who are terminally ill. A compassionate individual would conclude that it is not fair for patients to be forced to live this kind of life or lack thereof, if they do not wish to do so. Physician assisted suicide should be a legal option to competent, terminally ill patients in the United States in order to end their suffering, reduce the damaging financial effects of hospital costs on their loved ones and families and to preserve the individual right of people to determine their

Most of the debate in the United States about assisted suicide laws stems from a split between conservative, liberal, prolife, and prochoice advocates (Behuniak 17). Current assisted suicide laws in the United States, according to the National Death with Dignity National Center, “allow mentally competent, terminally-ill adult state residents to voluntarily request and receive a prescription medication to hasten their death” (“Death with Dignity…”). Only three states currently have passed legislation which allows terminally ill patients to make the choice to end their life: Oregon, Washington, and Vermont. Of these three states, Oregon was the first to pass legislation with its 1997 Death with Dignity Act, thus setting the precedent and establishing a template for other states reviewing similar legislation (Sanburn). Advocates for assisted suicide laws believe that doctors have a

If assisted suicide becomes legal in the United States then it would be legalizing murder. The question of assisted suicide being “mercy killing” has been a debatable topic for a while but there is no question that it is murder. There have been countless examples of loved ones killing loved ones because they are doing it out of “mercy”. In Kentucky, a man is facing murder charges for shooting his wife because he claimed it was “mercy killing”. His wife was in a battle with aggressive breast cancer and was reportedly suffering immense pain (Hanafin). It is difficult to think that a husband can shoot his own wife just because she was in pain. Also, there were two gunshot wounds. If a man really wanted to end his wife’s suffering then he would

     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.