Physician-Assited Suicide

The advancement of technology in the medical field has prolonged the lives of individuals, but certain terminal illnesses lead to inevitable death. Health care team members working in end-of-life care are being faced with the ethical dilemmas introduced by the physician-assisted suicide legalization, also known as the Death with Dignity Act, in the United States (Lachman, 2010). Physician-assisted suicide, or euthanasia in some texts, allows mentally competent, terminally ill individuals, with less than 6 months to live, a choice to self-administer physician prescribed medication, which assists in death (Friend, 2011; Harris, 2014; Lachman, 2010). Although the patient administers the fatal dose to his or her self, the ethical dilemma arises of whether physician-assisted suicide is the individual’s right, or a violation of human life (Harris, 2014). Terminally ill individuals should have the option to end their suffering during end-of-life care through physician-assisted suicide.
Physician-assisted suicide was legalized in the United States in June of 1997, but can be found throughout history, dating back to ancient civilizations (Friend, 2011; Lachman, 2010). Many ancient civilizations, to include the Greeks, believed that individuals had the right to voluntarily end their life instead of suffering (Friend, 2011; Lachman, 2010). Ending suffering was seen as an honorable death and physicians administered the poison at the individual’s request (Friend, 2011). In the fifteenth century, the act of euthanasia was considered immoral by members of Christianity and by doctors who studied the Hippocratic Oath (Friend, 2011). Many groups of people participated in religion and respected the knowledge of physicians; therefore, euth...

... middle of paper ...

...4). Unconsciousness is usually irreversible and is followed by death. Another option is terminating life sustaining treatments such as antibiotics, ventilators, cardio pulmonary resuscitation, and etcetera. The individual can also choose to be removed from all nutrition and hydration sources and allowed to die of dehydration or starvation, which occurs in about 1-3 weeks (Harris, 2014; Lachman, 2010). These options of allowing natural death in themselves seem similar to physician-assisted suicide. McManaman (2012) refers to them as “passive euthanasia” and states that, “Death is a side effect of removing such treatment, and death is accepted, not intended” (¶ 15). Currently, most individuals only have the option to end life-sustaining measures and be provided comfort care, which can hasten or cause death do not appear different than choosing assisted-suicide.