The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Physician Assisted Suicide

These patients are accessing their autonomy to do so their cognitive function has to be working properly. Patients suffering from complete paralysis or are on life support measure also seek this because for them it 's hard to deal with physical symptoms such as breathlessness, incontinence, difficulty swallowing, nausea, and vomiting or psychological factors like depression, feeling loss of control and dignity and overall dislike of being a burden or dependency on family members while other argue that suicidal ideation or lack of decent palliative care can be a reason for asking for assisted suicide. (Annadurai, Danasekaran, & Mani, 2014).

The biggest disadvantage of Physician-assisted suicide is going against the Hippocratic oath that physicians

A patient with terminal illness is asking his physician to provide him with interventions to end his own life. One thing that needs to be determined by physician and the staff caring for the patient is the mental health of the patient. Is the patient alert, oriented, how is the thinking process, can they comprehend the result of their actions? What if the patient has suicidal ideation, is schizophrenic, on drugs or is suffering from depression due to terminal illness or lack of family support and just wants to end his life because of his depression, dependency and not because of the disease process. This is just one thing a physician has to assess before even considering life terminating interventions. Another factor to consider is the family of the patient. How are they treating the patient, are they pushing the patient towards assisted suicide because they are burnt out due to providing constant care or their any motive for the family for example financial benefit or taking over the patient’s assets? Also, what if the patient feels pressurized from family members and society to agree to PAS even though they don’t want to die. Another factor is the age of patient requesting PAS. In today’s world, not only older people are suffering from debilitating diseases but also children have an illness which leaves them paralyzed or dealing with lifelong dependence. In most countries, including the United States, the legal age to apply for assisted suicide is eighteen while patients as young as twelve years can apply for it in the Netherlands. As it 's known, not all medical procedures go with any problem, so that brings another problem as to what if assisted suicide doesn 't go according to that plan and adds more pain or discomfort to the patient (Emanuel, Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Urwin, & Cohen,