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The effects of physician assisted suicide
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The Difference Between Physician Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide are both similar ways for patients to take the easy way out of medical suffering. Euthanasia is worse than assistant suicide because it can be performed without a patient’s consent. If the result of death is the same for both, how can one be accepted than the other? Euthanasia is a doctor taking a patient’s life in using painless medication while that person is suffering from a disease against or with a patient’s consent. Assisted suicide is exactly similar to Euthanasia, however a doctor must and only have consent from the patient. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are both illegal, except in some states. The only difference between both is assisted suicide has one different aspect, the patient can have a living will. If both results end in death, why does assisted suicide make it acceptable to be legal in some states? On the other hand, Citizens choose assisted suicide when they come to a point they do not think they can survive or have purpose to live. If a patient is suffering from long term cancer treatments, being in a coma, injuries, or a disease with the medicine and surgeries not helping, the patient …show more content…
Physician assisted suicide is the same as Euthanasia, with the only difference of having a patient’s consent only. Euthanasia and assisted suicide should both be illegal for helping a patient take his or her own life. In my previous essay that I wrote in my English 101 class at Montgomery College, I stated why and how assistant suicide is harming the medical field and taking lives that have the right to live. It takes away doctors from being able to find a cure for current and future patients going through the same cancer or
Imagine a family member being extremely ill and suffering from day to day. When they decide they cannot take the pain any more, would you want them to pull through for you or would you fulfill their dying wish and let the doctor pull the plug? Could you even make a decision? Many people would not allow such an event to happen because with all the pain and confusion the patient is enduring may cause confusion and suicidal tendencies. However, there are people who believe otherwise. This is called physician-assisted suicide. Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is a controversial topic that causes much debate. Though it is only legal in the three states Oregon, Washington and Montana, there are many people who are for it and think it can be necessary. Even with morals put aside, Physician-assisted suicide should be illegal because it will be a huge violation of the oath every doctor must abide by, there would be no real way to distinguish between people who are suffering and the people who are faking or depressed, and it causes a lot of confusion to people with new diseases or new strands of disease that does not have a clear cure.
Physician-assisted suicide is defined as a physician providing either equipment or medication, or to inform the patient of the most available means, for the purpose of assisting the patient to end his or her own life. The people’s opinion support PAS according to a poll given in 1998. The majority 33% of people agreed that Physician assisted suicide should be made legal in a variety of circumstances, and 32% agreed with making it legal in select cases. (Gallup)
¨ If I cannot give my consent to my own death, whose body is this? Who owns my life?- Sue Rodriguez. If one cannot choose when they die and how they go out, then are we really the owner of our life and body? Physician assisted suicide is the practice of providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life. When the patient is terminally ill and is in a lot of pain they should be able to end their own life instead of waiting for it to end itself. Even though some argue that physician assisted suicide is not a humane way of dying it still stops the patient´s suffering and gives them peace of mind.
Physician-assisted suicide refers to the physician acting indirectly in the death of the patient -- providing the means for death. The ethics of PAS is a continually debated topic. The range of arguments in support and opposition of PAS is vast. Justice, compassion, the moral irrelevance of the difference between killing and letting die, and individual liberty are many arguments for PAS. The distinction between killing and letting die, sanctity of life, "do no harm" principle of medicine, and the potential for abuse are some of the arguments in favor of making PAS illegal.
Terminally ill patients should have the legal option of physician-assisted suicide. Terminally ill patients deserve the right to control their own death. Legalizing assisted suicide would relive families of the burdens of caring for a terminally ill relative. Doctors should not be prosecuted for assisting in the suicide of a terminally ill patient. We as a society must protect life, but we must also recognize the right to a humane death. When a person is near death, in unbearable pain, they have the right to ask a physician to assist in ending their lives.
To sanction the taking of innocent human life is to contradict a primary purpose of law in an ordered society. A law or court decision allowing assisted suicide would demean the lives of vulnerable patients and expose them to exploitation by those who feel they are better off dead. Such a policy would corrupt the medical profession, whose ethical code calls on physicians to serve life and never to kill. The voiceless or marginalized in our society -- the poor, the frail elderly, racial minorities, millions of people who lack health insurance -- would be the first to feel pressure to die.
Assisted Suicide, also known as mercy killing, occurs when a physician provides the means (drugs or other agents) by which a person can take his or her own life. This assistance is one of the most debated issues today in society followed by abortion. Physicians are frequently faced with the question of whether or not assisted suicide is ethical or immoral. Although assisted suicide is currently illegal in almost all states in America, it is still often committed. Is assisted suicide ethical? Studies have found that the majority of Americans support assisted suicide. One must weigh both sides of the argument before they can decide.
To begin with, what is physician suicide? Physician assisted suicide is confused with euthanasia, and even though they fall under the same category these terminologies do differ. The definition
The ethical issues of physician-assisted suicide are both emotional and controversial, as it struggles with the issue of life and death. If you take a moment and imagine how you would choose to live your last day, it is almost guaranteed that it wouldn’t be a day spent lying in a hospital bed, suffering in pain, continuously being pumped with medicine, and living in a strangers’ body. Today we live in a culture that denies the terminally ill the right to maintain control over when and how to end their lives. Physicians-assisted suicide “is the voluntary termination of one's own life by the administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician” (Medical Definition of Physician-Assisted Suicide, 2017). Physician-assisted
The person has waived their right to life by consenting to suicide, there is no fear that would be caused if only those who are terminally ill and consent are killed, and the grief is inevitable anyways as death is imminent. They go on further to make an analogy with starving children [1]. This analogy does not hold, as the reason that assisted suicide is pursued is to relieve suffering, and is unrelated to the “value” that human life has. Finally, they argue that allowing assisted suicide will cause people to be pressured into committing suicide [1].
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, Medical practioners should be allowed to help patients actively determine the time and circumstances of their death” (Lee). “Arguments for and against assisted suicide (sometimes called the “right to die” debate) are complicated by the fact that they come from very many different points of view: medical issues, ethical issues, legal issues, religious issues, and social issues all play a part in shaping people’s opinions on the subject” (Lee). Euthanasia should not be legalized because it is considered murder, it goes against physicians’ Hippocratic Oath, violates the Controlled
That may be the reason why the ability to decreases the value of human life shouldn’t be in the hand of humans. Assisted suicide can open the floodgates for anyone to medically end their life even if they are not ill. Also this proposes a culture and religions problem. To commit suicide will give you a one-way ticket to hell. Consequently, it is harder on love ones to know where you may spend eternity. Is there really dignity in taking your own life? Or are you choosing to give up. Terminal ill patients feel they may loose this battle “life” so instead of fighting they would rather waive the white flag and tap out. Which to a healthy person may not make sense because the patient may have to move to a state that assisted suicide is illegal and go though all the legal work to get the permission to
Is anyone else feeling the pain? only the person who is suffering. The choice belongs to the person who is in pain. The Utilitarians would determine that assisted suicide is right because a person should not be suffering . I agree with the Utilitarians about assisted suicide because no human being who is very sick should live with pain up until death and the positive facts about assisted suicide is that the person who is very sick can die peacefully and not be in pain anymore. If a very sick person who cannot get any better and the person is tired of being sick the person would rather just die in their bed surrounded by family members than living with sickness which is terrible and the negative facts about assisted suicide is that no human being should
Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide has been a hot topic of debate for quite some time now. Some believe it to be immoral, while others see nothing wrong with it what so ever. Regardless what anyone believes, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide should become legal for physicians and patients. Death is a personal situation in life. By government not allowing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide they are interfering and violating patient’s personal freedom and human rights! Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide have the power to save the lives of family members and other ill patients. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide should become legal however, there should be strict rules and guidelines to follow and carry out by both the patient and physician. If suicide isn’t a crime why should euthanasia and assisted suicide? Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide should be legal and the government should not be permitted to interfere with death.
Some people believe that physician assisted suicide is murder while others believe physician assisted suicide should be available to terminally ill patients. Micheal H. White, a member of the board of Death With Dignity Education Center, and past-co-chair of the Los Angeles County Bar Association Bioethics Committee, states that physician assisted suicide relieves the patie...