The Meaning Of The Word Dignity

Within the past few years physician assisted suicide has been a major topic of debate. Assisted suicide is termed as suicide committed with aid from another individual, including a doctor. With the suicide term raising much concern, many people interchangeably use other terms. A few terms are death with dignity, physician assisted death or compassionate dying. Physician assisted death is implemented for those that are terminally ill and mentally capable adults that would prefer to shorten their dying process. The option of being able to get medical aid in dying only apply to certain states, and must pass through an election for that specific state. The first state to vote on the subject was Oregon and eventually passed in 1994 as the Death with Dignity Act (Jackson, 2008). There are now six states in the United States that has passed this act. The states that are allowing physician assisted death are District of Columbia, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California and recently Colorado.

Physician assisted suicide was brought to mainstream attention in the 1990’s due to Dr. Kevorkian’s “suicide machine," who claims to have assisted over 100 suicide deaths of terminally ill patients with Alzheimer’s disease (Dickinson, p. 8). In the early 1990’s, for the first time in United States history the issue was brought to the voting polls in California, Washington, and Oregon (Dickinson, p. 9). The bill was passed in Oregon; legally allowing physicians to facilitate death of the terminally ill, but voters fails to pass the bill in Washington and California (Dickinson, p. 9). In 2008 voters in Washington State passed the Washington Death with Dignity Act (Dickinson, p. 277). Today

Dignity in Dying is a national campaign and membership organisation, advocating a change in the law on assisted dying. A change to the existing law would allow terminally ill people who are considered mentally competent to decide when to end their lives. Essentially, this would mean that a dying patient would be able to request life ending medication from their doctor, thus enabling them to make a decision when and how they would die.

While many Americans assume “assisted suicide” or physician aid-in-dying (PAD) is unethical, they may not be fully aware of what it is and how it helps people. Imagine a loved one of yours was near the end of their life. The doctors predict only six months or less remain of their life and these next six months will consist of excruciating pain and will be almost too unbearable to comprehend. As the six months progress this person will lose the ability to eat. They will be forced to a diet of flaky ice chips which will put them in a state of relentless hunger making their body weaker and more painful than it had been before. They will also lose the ability to care for themselves and will find themselves relying on family members or complete strangers at times to care for their most private needs. After all this treatment, pain, embarrassment, and utter helplessness the patient will feel as if they have lost their dignity, they will feel as if they are a burden to everyone around them and will even become depressed in some cases. If the loved one lives in Washington State, Oregon, or Vermont they will then be faced with two options regarding the next six hypothetical months they can decide to take on the most unbearable six months of their life or they can resort to an alternative called “Death with Dignity” in which they will be administered a dose of medication from their physician that will take their life. The process is painless and can only be administered to patients

Brittany Maynard was one of the people to use the Death with Dignity Act in Organ and once said,“To have control of my own mind…to go with dignity is less terrifying. When I look at both options I have to die, I feel this is far more humane” (Sandeen, 2014). No matter what, we will all eventually die, but we should have the right to die as humanely as possible. The Death with Dignity Act is an end-of-life choice possibility for terminally ill patients to be given the freedom to decide for themselves what it means to die with dignity. This act allows them to die with dignity by providing them with lethal medications prescribed by a physician (The Oregon Department of Human Services, 2006). The Death with Dignity Act started to allow people with six months or less to live, the right to die in a manner and at the time of their own choosing. Also, even though modern medicine has benefited humanity greatly, it cannot completely resolve the suffering and distress that comes with the dying process, so Death with Dignity can provide a painless end-of-life choice for suffering individuals (Humphry, 2009). Although Death with Dignity is a controversial topic I feel it can be very beneficial especially since people go through a long process just to try to get the medication and the ones that get it really need it. I chose this topic because death always has been interesting to me and I one day hope to have a career

Support for the participation of physicians in the suicides of terminally ill patients is increasing. Much of the controversy surrounding physician-assisted suicide however focuses on the debate over whether the practice should be legalized. A woman suffering from cancer became the first person known to die under the law of physician-assisted suicide in March of 1998. In 1994, voters in Oregon approved a referendum called the Death with Dignity Act, which was enacted in 1997. This law allows patients who have been given six months or less to live that wish to hasten their deaths to obtain lethal doses of medication prescribed by two doctors. Between 1998 and 2000, ninety-six lethal prescriptions were written, and seventy patients took the

Ezekiel Emanuel once said, “Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia have been profound ethical issues confronting doctors since the birth of Western medicine, more than 2,000 years ago.” Physician assisted suicide (PAS) should be available as a dignified option for the terminally ill because it can be built in to the palliative care plan formulated by patient and Doctor, may alleviate some medical costs for the incurable, and it’s a moderated and humane way to end a person’s suffering.

A woman suffering from cancer became the first person known to die under the law on physician-assisted suicide in the state of Oregon when she took a lethal dose of drugs in March, 1998. The Oregon Death with Dignity Act passed a referendum in November, 1997, and it has been the United States ' only law legalizing assisted suicide since then. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, more than 4,000 doctors have approved of the assisted suicide law (cited in "The Anguish of Doctors,” 1996). The law allows terminally ill patients who have been given six months or less to live and wish to hasten their deaths to obtain medication prescribed by two doctors. The most important thing to notice is that this law does not include those who have been on a life support system nor does it include those who have not voluntarily asked physicians to help them commit suicide. The issue of doctor-assisted suicide has been the subject of the heated dispute in recent years. Many people worry that legalizing doctor assisted suicide is irrational and violates the life-saving tradition of medicine. However, physician-assisted suicide should be legalized because it offers terminally ill people an opportunity for a peaceful death and recognized the inadequacy of current medical practice to deal with death.

Since 1993, Compassion in Dying, which is a nonprofit charitable organization, has provided information, consultation, and emotional support to patients that were terminally ill and wanted to consider assisted dying by self-administration of medication as one of their end of life options. The team for this organization includes nurses, psychologists, physicians, and clergy as was as laypeople from the community who help patients, their families, and their physicians examine the choices available to achieve peaceful and humane deaths (Lee). To be eligible to use this Act a person must be a resident of Oregon, 18 years or older, capable of making and communication health care decisions for him or herself, mentally competent, and diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months. This article uses data from the files of Compassion in Dying, and they describe 34 individuals who approached Compassion wanting to use the Death with Dignity Act and who died during the first year of the Act’s implantation. A downfall to this Act that has caused some problems is delays in processing a

In 1997 Oregon arranged to enact the Death with Dignity Act. This act allows people who are residents of Oregon to end their own life through the voluntary self-administration o lethal medications, as prescribed by a medical professional who specifies in this area of healthcare. The Oregon Death with Dignity act requires that all physicians, patients and other professionals to submit patient information, data, and annual statistical reports to the Oregon Health Authority.

Oregon was the first state in the United States to pass the Death with Dignity Act (DWDA) on 1994. DWDA, also known as physician-assisted suicide (PAS), allows terminally ill Oregonians to end their lives if they request it to their physician. This act requires that ill patients must meet the requirements for death with dignity before they can request lethal medications that will terminate their lives. The requirements include the following11:

According to research, 66% of adults here in the United States believe that a doctor should allow a patient to die under certain circumstances. Physician assisted death is currently legal in Oregon, Washington, and Montana. Other states such as Connecticut, Hawaii, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are considering legislation to allow physician assisted deaths for people with terminal illnesses. (Gordon, Serena). Physician assisted death needs to be legal because of how much it has evolved over time; it has many advantages, and the obligations that doctors are responsible

The Death With Dignity Act (DWDA) was passed in the state of Oregon on November 8, 1994, and allowed competent, terminally ill patients 18 years old or older and were also state residents to acquire a prescription of barbiturates from a doctor to end their own life when their anguish became intolerable.6 208 individuals died under the DWDA. 36% of patients who received the lethal prescription never took them.2 This insinuates that patients dealing with immense suffering from a terminal illness at least sought control over the situation.

First, Connecticut pro-choice supporters attempted to legalize the Death with Dignity Act three times since 2013, as they believe competent, terminally ill individuals in Connecticut should have the legal right to choose medically assisted death. Unfortunately, this legislation has not come to a vote in Connecticut; however, each time more people are supportive of the bill. The last Quinnipiac University Poll, completed in March 2015, has shown that by more than a 2-1 margin (63% vs. 31%), Connecticut voters support “allowing doctors to legally prescribe lethal drugs to help terminally ill patients end their lives” (C&C, Oregon, 2016). The “Death with Dignity Act” originated in Oregon, in 1997 with enough support to be the first state to pass the new law. Washington passed a similar law eleven years later, in 2008. Additionally, Colorado has been the most recent state to have this law passed on November 8, 2016. All the states have modeled after Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. Specifically, the law states that the person must be terminally ill with less than six months to live, also be at least eighteen

In 1994, Oregon voters passed the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, which exempted, “from civil or criminal liability physicians who, in compliance with specific safeguards, dispense or prescribe (but not administer) a lethal dose of drugs upon the request of the terminally ill patient.” Oregon, to this day, remains the only state within the Union to allow physician-assisted suicide. In 1997, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case that, although there was no constitutionally protected right to physician-assisted suicide, states have permitted to pass laws allowing it. Thus, the issue of euthanasia remains widely open to philosophical, political, legal, and ethical challenges.