The Right To Die Essay

The “Right to Die” law is not as complicated as people try to make it. For those who are terminally ill, elderly with Alzheimers, or being kept alive, it can be a very important and useful law for them to have access to. This law is only legal in 3 states, Oregon, Washington, and Montana. It is a law that has been etablished and made available to those who do not wish to live in a vegetative state, die in severe pain, or not knowing those around them. The law says that the person has the right to end their lives when there are circumstances that will affect them having a meaningful and productive life. The way the law is written, “it does allow mentally competent adults who declare their intentions in writing, and have been diagnosed as

Present-day society and modern medicine face difficult decisions every day. In all terminally ill cases, there is important agreement among many religious traditions who believe that preserving life is considered to be morally obligated. However, the euthanasia supporters argue it should be private that an individual’s decision to volunteer to die because it does not harm others. Regarding the issue of legalizing euthanasia, the government should offer psychological therapy for those who perform the act of helping the patient in need rather than commit so called murder. In efforts to change the law to allow patients to legally receive an assistance to die might be the only way to prevent such suffering. Ultimately this decision to change the law is to give human right of all individuals to decide how to lead their own lives, which would include how and when to die in order to provide them peace of mind as their suffering and means of life deteriorates rapidly. To prevent abuse of these such assisted suicide practices, there must be laws that would have to be set and followed by patients and health professions. Independence and choice are important values in any society, but they are not without limits.

As patients come closer to the end of their lives, certain organs stop performing as well as they use to. People are unable to do simple tasks like putting on clothes, going to the restroom without assistance, eat on our own, and sometimes even breathe without the help of a machine. Needing to depend on someone for everything suddenly brings feelings of helplessness much like an infant feels. It is easy to see why some patients with terminal illnesses would seek any type of relief from this hardship, even if that relief is suicide. Euthanasia or assisted suicide is where a physician would give a patient an aid in dying. “Assisted suicide is a controversial medical and ethical issue based on the question of whether, in certain situations,

Often times when a terminal patient has six months to live they still have autonomy. One would need to be autonomous to be approved for PAS and as such we can infer that the patient is able to make peace, tie up loose ends, find comfort in religion, and be comforted with family before being consumed by the disease. Giving the patient the option to die with dignity vs. naturally where time and treatments slowly deteriorate the mind and body can offer freedom from suffering for the patient and family. For example if a patient that felt ill and after medical testing receives a diagnosis that she has a rare systemic cancer and at best has six months to live. That patient then could with the support of her family discuss everything that needs to be taken care of prior to the advancement of the disease. After taking care of business, the patient could discuss with her family and friends ways to create special days leading up to her last day. This option could give the family, as well as the patient, the possibility to say goodbye before the disease has removed autonomy and personality. This patient’s family would not have to watch their daughter, wife, sister, or mother suffer greatly to the point she screams for God to take her.

According to Simon Jenkins, a writer for the British newspaper The Guardian, states that “there cannot be a human freedom so personal as ordering the circumstances of one's own death...[yet]... the near universal desire ‘to be allowed to die in my own home’ is willfully disregarded” (Jenkins 1). By allowing yourself to have life, one would assume that this gives you freedom over other aspects of your existence, including when it should end. By denying the rights to achieve liberty, achieve happiness, and define our lives, are we not denying the rights governments around the world were founded on? It is the denial of these rights that allows the mental stress felt by patients to turn into physical pain.

Some would argue that euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide is a perfectly good process in life. Most people feel comfortable at the fact that it is done in a professional health care facility when the death occurs. People also having the right to choose for themselves if they want to participate in the euthanasia. Feeling like a person has to suffer the mental and physical pain is not good for the person’s health in addition to the other occurring problems. While this option can be abused, some laws are set in place so it cannot be abused. A written, witnessed request is provided as long as the patient is mentally competent. If the patient repeatedly request the death, two doctors have to agree that the death is appropriate for the patient

Is the phrase “right to die” applicable as a right? Leon R. Kass believes that the claim of a “right to die” is insubstantial because of the precursors pertaining to the meaning of rights. Leon R. Kass believes that the right to die is an ineffectual statement and unprecedented, that it is portrayed as a civil duty to which all should be in unison because Euthanasia is after all “Mercy Killing”. Right!? This case delves into the moral domain, within which it derives it’s relevance to the subject of Bioethics, Euthanasia is a popular subject that health care professionals, lawyers and theologians have dealt with for a long time. While it is an extreme and exceptional case to support and argue in favor of,

As a quadriplegic who has been paralyzed from the chest down for over 24 years, I want to address the dangerous potential ramifications of legalizing physician assisted suicide (PAS) from a viewpoint of personal experience. The past danger I am referring to concerns the time when I was first paralyzed. My paralysis is the result of a broken neck and spinal cord injury from a car accident in 1975. Add to this cheery scenario the fact that I was soon greeted by a doctor who told me I was not supposed to have lived as long as I had, would most likely die shortly, or, in the best case would spend the remainder of my life confined to a wheelchair and you know I was not in the

As long as man has existed death has also existed and with that an uncertainty about one’s own death and how and when it will occur. Many of us from an early age understand that death comes and that it can come to those we love and we wish we could change the timing or the circumstance that precedes those deaths. Over time people have developed ways to make the act of death easier for the one dying, at least in the context of physical comfort. This has led to the fact that certain medications when used for physical comfort can also hasten the timing of that death. In these times of great lawsuits and great debates that can involve people and their opinions from all over the world, I want to look at the “Right to Die” movement and their practices

Autonomy is a fundamental right. Liberty interests of patients while coping with terminal illness, however, unlike autonomy, are protected under the Constitution as fundamental rights. Advancements in medicine are extending the average life expectancy for adults. The aging of the baby boomer generation is also contributing to the increase in the growing number of the elder population. As society ages, not only do individuals battle terminal illness, but they combat the unanticipated demands on their right to die with dignity. The ability to choose the timing of one’s death is limited to a few states in America. Additionally, there are a few countries now allowing physician assisted suicide. Even with this option, a patient must

Last year a young woman named Brittany Maynard made headlines when her choice of “assisted suicide” became publicized through a mutual friend. She became a public figure and advocate for the “Right to die”. Throughout the years and more recently in my personal work experience I have encountered numerous people; even relatives with life threatening illnesses, most of them who went on to die. I have often wondered how many of these people would take advantage of their right to die on their own terms if there were certain laws in place. If you woke up tomorrow with a debilitating, and life threatening illness how would you react. Would you go in time, or would you go on your own time. If your choice would be to go in your own time, there is a

As Americans, do we have the right to die? A controversial topic that has gained traction in recent years is that of physician assisted suicide(PAS). With the death of Brittany Maynard in 2014, the conversation on whether death is a liberty is ruffling feathers on all sides. With five states in the U.S., including the District of Columbia, already legalizing PAS for people with a terminal diagnosis; some Americans already have that freedom. For the other 45 states, they do not share that same luxury. Physician assisted suicide should be legal in all 50 states because it grants people who are near the end of their life, a way to go out on their own terms with their dignity intact. It also allows people who are terminally ill the

The right to die has been a controversial topic for a while now; although, recently it has become widely publicized and it has gained more support due to a recent case. The “right to die” means that you can refuse phenomenal life-sustaining measures to prolong your life artificially when you are deemed by physician to be terminally or incurably ill. Even though people have not always been given the choice to die, you should be able to choose because it is not the governments say; it is yours. It is considered controversial because of ethics and religion. In the realm of ethics, it is unethical to kill someone, and having a doctor take you off of life support is technically killing the person. Considering religion, in the bible it speaks against suicide, which is in technical terms what happens if a person take lethal drugs given by a physician to die.

Just as the Supreme Court granted the right to refuse medical treatment, people should be given the legal right to hasten their suffering with the help of the Death with Dignity Act. Opponents argue that given permission to assist in dying more vulnerable patients would be “susceptible to coercion.”

The right to die is one of the current hottest topics in the U.S. because this law creates disagreement for both parties. There are three states in the United States have the right to die law, and other states are consider about this law. Many people are afraid, nervous, and excited about this law. They are afraid that when this law passes, people may have different definitions about what life means. People could use this law for assisted suicide. Today technology will help us to fight many diseases, but there is other damage to the body, such as brain damage. Patients may not be able to recover. It is very difficult for families to watch the patients suffer when there is the possibility of a law, which could open another option for them to