Oregon Death with Dignity Act

29 years old Brittany Maynard, she’s been married for just over a year and has terminal brain cancer. In April 2014, she had six months or less left to live. She made a decision to move from California to Oregon to access that state’s Death with Dignity Act. The law authorized her to a take life-ending medication, so she can pass away gently and peacefully at home with family. Also she said she is not suicidal, she doesn’t want to die. But there’s no treatments that save her life. And she wants to

The Death with Dignity Act allows terminally ill patients to seek to end their lives by requesting lethal doses of medication. The patients are required to be a resident of the three states, which have made thing legal. Do patients favor having the right to live or die when suffering from incurable cancer or painful illness? Is Death with Dignity considered suicide? There are many opinions on the act; some people consider Death with Dignity to be murder or suicide while some consider it the end of

concentrate on the issue of physician- assisted suicide. Physician suicide assisted death (PSD) is a death that has been mediated by a physician toward a patient who intends or wishes to die. In the United States, physician- assisted suicide is illegal in most states. Although, there are some states, like Oregon that have legalize physician- assisted suicide or California who is in the process of legalizing physician patient death, most states considered physician- assisted suicide as murder and physician

known as Death with Dignity and right to die laws, are both controversial and largely discussed in state legislatures across the United States. These laws permit patients with a terminal illness to either commit or have assistance in committing suicide through a medical process. Due to the influence of changing public opinion, the increase in the passage of state laws, and the advocacy of prominent public figures, support for assisted suicide laws has increased in the United States since Oregon set

with dignity is a very controversial topic. Some have not even heard of this either because the state they live in hasn’t legalized it, or because it never was brought up in their lives before. Since the early nineteen-nineties, this law has been debated about and brought up numerous times in terminally ill cases. Lately, especially since four states have legalized it and 50% of the states, not including the ones that have already legalized it, have considered permitting the death with dignity law

Death With Dignity: A Patient’s Choice Mosby’s Medical Dictionary defines death with dignity as “the philosophical concept that a terminally ill client should be allowed to die naturally and comfortably, rather than experience a comatose, vegetative life prolonged by mechanical support systems” (Elsevier). So we must ask ourselves; why does death with dignity remain such a philosophical idea? Why must a person’s right to their own life be haltered and prohibited by the law? In most cases, the

of happiness, something this country was founded on. That’s why it is crucial that all American men and women have the option of physician assisted suicide regardless of what others believe. References Death with Dignity Act Annual Reports. (1999-2004). Oregon department of health and human services, public health authority. Retrieved from

The Death With Dignity Act is a law that allows terminally ill people to end their lives through the voluntary self- administration of lethal medication, prescribed by a physician for that purpose. This act was enacted on October 27, 1997 in Oregon. The Death With Dignity Act in Oregon has strict requirements in order to utilize this act. The patient must be 18 years or older, diagnosed with a terminal illness that will ultimately lead to death within 6 months, the patient needs to be a resident

physician to assist in a patient’s death because it is not respecting the dying patient. Physician-patient assisted suicide divide physicians because many physicians differ when it comes to separating voluntarily killing a patient or killing the patient to respect their dying wish. Patients, who are gravely ill or in their final stages of life, often request for doctors to help them pass on by requesting medications such as morphine to help speed up their death because they are in pain. In healthcare

There was no treatment that could save her life. Brittany who lived in California at the time packed up with her family and moved to Oregon where the “Death with dignity” law is in place. Maynard was very open and honest with her decision to choose the right to die. I did not want this nightmare scenario for my family, so I started researching death with dignity. It is an end-of-life option for mentally competent, terminally ill patients with a prognosis of six months or less to live. It would