Physician Assisted Suicide Case Study

A man sits in a hospital waiting room, anticipating the test results that are about to come. While sitting there he over hears a doctor tell a young lady her diagnosis. She is a woman of her late twenties with a husband and family by her side and she has just been diagnosed with a terminal illness. This is a tragedy that no one ever sees coming. Would this woman want to die rather than deal with the pain or maybe she will stay strong and suffer through it all, for her kids and for her family. However, perhaps there is one option that she does not have that maybe she should; any victim of a terminal illness should also have the option to end his or her life through the means of legal euthanasia.

“Euthanasia is the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (such as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively

“In 1967, an attorney named Lois Kutner suggested the first living will. Kutner’s goal was to facilitate “the rights of dying people to control decisions about their own medical care” (“Advance Medical Directives (Living Will, Power of Attorney, and Health Care Proxy)” 1). In between this event in nineteen sixty-seven and the year nineteen seventy-four another major event took place in the United States. “The first U.S. hospice opened in New Haven, Connecticut” (“Historical Timeline”). Hospice is a “home” for a very sick patient. It is a place a family can stay close to their loved one while they are getting medical care. By the year nineteen seventy-seven there were a total of eight states that had a bill that gave people “the right to die” (“Historical Timeline” 8) Euthanasia in its entirety is still illegal in the United States today. However, there are some states that have legalized physician aid in dying or assisted