The Debate Of Assisted Suicide

The word suicide gives many people negative feelings and is a socially taboo subject. However, suicide might be beneficial to terminally ill patients. Physician- assisted suicide has been one of the most controversial modern topics. Many wonder if it is morally correct to put a terminally ill patient out of their misery. Physicians should be able to meet the requests of their terminally ill patients. Unfortunately, a physician can be doing more harm by keeping someone alive instead of letting them die peacefully. For example, an assisted suicide can bring comfort to patients. These patients are in excruciating pain and will eventually perish. The government should not be involved in such a personal decision. A physician- assisted suicide comes with many benefits for the patient. If a person is terminally ill and wants a physician assisted suicide, then they should receive one.

Assisted suicide is a topic that has ignited a severe debate due to the controversy that surrounds its implementation. Assisted suicide occurs when a patients expresses their intention to die and request a physician to assist them in the process. Some countries like Oregon, Canada, and Belgium have legalized the process terming it as an alternative to prolonged suffering for patients who are bound to die. Unlike euthanasia where a physician administers the process, assisted suicide requires that the patient voluntarily initiates and executes the process. Although there exists concession such a process is important to assist patients die without much suffering, there has emerged criticism on its risk of abuse and as an expression of medical

Who gets to make the choice whether someone lives or dies? If a person has the right to live, they certainly should be able to make the choice to end their own life. The law protects each and everyone’s right to live, but when a person tries to kill themselves more than likely they will end up in a Psychiatric unit. Today we hear more and more about the debate of Physician assisted suicide and where this topic stands morally and ethically. Webster 's dictionary defines Physician assisted suicide as, suicide by a patient facilitated by means (as a drug prescription) or by information (as an indication of a lethal dosage) provided by a physician who is aware of the patient 's intent (Webster, 1977).

Now that I’ve demonstrated that my ethical theory can be used to make educated decisions in situations that we can potentially face daily, how does my ethical theory fit with issues of life or death? My ethical theory focuses more on issues that an individual will face in their everyday life. It does not directly deal with issues of life and death; however you can still go through the core concepts to make a decision. For instance, let's take a look at assisted suicide.

of life. Death is inevitable. Why should each of us not have the right to

The thoughts of assisted suicide are very mixed. Some people believe that it is a great way to put terminally-ill patients out of the their pain and suffering. They see it as a way for a person to die with dignity after suffering from a painful disease. Others think it is beyond morally wrong for a doctor to intentionally end a patient’s life. They feel that a doctor should not have unnecessary deaths riding, on their shoulders the rest of their career. Assisted suicide goes way beyond the beliefs of medicine and is morally wrong in so many ways.

Brittany Maynard was given six months to live after being diagnosed with the deadliest form of brain cancer; she had recently just turned 29. To make matters worse, doctors had told her she would suffer from the tumor in a slow and painful manner before succumbing to death. Maynard decided she would die on November 1, a few days after her husband’s birthday under physician-assisted suicide. Unfortunately, she had to relocate from California, where her friends and family lived, to Oregon in order to fall under the “Die With Dignity” act. According to euthanasia.procon.org, only four states in the whole country have legalized assisted suicide. Unfortunately, there are many like Maynard, who have to relocate and leave their home or go through a long and strenuous court battle to receive this treatment plant. This is due to the disapproval of physician-assisted suicide.

It was in 1990’s when the topic of assisted suicide reached an all-time high. It was the work of Doctor Jack Kevorkian that began in 1960 that sparked the topic of “right to die” legislative action. Doctor Kevorkian was a Michigan doctor responsible for the deaths some 44 suicides for terminally ill patients. Doctor Kevorkian along with many accredited doctors such as Marcia Angell, agree on one main point; terminally-ill patients should have the right to determine how they should end their life. Marcia Angell, states in her article The Supreme Court and Physician-Assisted Suicide-The Ultimate Right that “Although others may consider

Nowadays, in the United States, people face many big controversial issues. Besides problems related to the reality of daily life like health care, government intercepting phone calls, raising the minimum wage, gender equality, human rights, equality, anti-racism ... have practical effect on social life. People are also really concerned about the issue of physician-assisted suicide. Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) or euthanasia has become a controversial issue today, and that related to consciousness, choices and decisions about life of people. PAS is an action expressing an intention of ending a life to relieve intractable, persistent, and unstoppable suffering. Another idea, PAS is the

id you know, from “1998 to 2003, 171 patients died using AS” according to The Oregon Department of Human Services (Ersek, 50). AS stands for Assisted Suicide and Physician Assisted Suicide is the practice of providing a terminally ill patient with a prescription for medication to use with the main intention of ending his or her own life. “These actions included delivering the prescription for a lethal drug dose to the patient’s home, helping the patient take the lethal dose by crushing a medication and adding it to ice cream or pudding, placing the medication in the patient’s mouth, or instilling the medication into an enteric tube” (Ersek 51). The right to assisted suicide is an important topic that alarms people all over the US. The controversies

In today’s society, suicide, and more controversially, physician assisted suicide, is a hotly debated topic amongst both every day citizens and members of the medical community. The controversial nature of the subject opens up the conversation to scrutinizing the ethics involved. Who can draw the line between morality and immorality on such a delicate subject, between lessening the suffering of a loved one and murder? Is there a moral dissimilarity between letting someone die under your care and killing them? Assuming that PAS suicide is legal under certain circumstances, how stringent need be these circumstances? The patient must be terminally ill to qualify for voluntary physician-assisted suicide, but in the eyes of the non-terminal patients with no physical means to end their life, the ending of their pain through PAS may be worth their death; at what point is the medical staff disregarding a patient’s autonomy? Due to the variability of answers to these questions, the debate over physician-assisted suicide is far from over. However, real life occurrences happen every day outside the realm of debate and rhetoric, and decisions need to be made.

Joni at age 17 had mishap that let in a state of quadriplegic and paralyzed from her shoulder down. To her she had no purpose of life anymore. Her situation causes her to feel that she will be an inconvenience to people, because of her disabilities. Joni had to tolerate suffering and hardship, to her there was no point of living this way and wishes to be euthanized. Her wishes for assisted suicide brings an ethical dilemma in a Christians worldview. The dilemma is that suicide is consider a sin and to assist Joni with her request goes against my beliefs. There is a decision that I have to make I can assist her in her request against my beliefs or I can choose not to do it and explain to Joni why is it important not to commit this sin

Imagine for a moment one morning you woke up not feeling quite yourself, you have a really high fever and your back and feet hurt in such a way you can barely catch your breath, something that has become more pronounced and refuses to be ignored. You call you family doctor up and make an appointment to go in and get his opinion on what could be wrong with you. The doctor asks you some rather routine questions, pokes and prods at you, takes several samples of your blood and sends them off to be tested, advising you that he will call you as soon as the results are back. A week and a half goes by and finally you get the call you have been looking forward to and dreading at the same time. The doctor asks you to come to his office because he would like to discuss his findings with you in person. You find yourself in the doctors’ office sitting on that stiff leather couch across from the doctor who seems a bit uncomfortable as though he is not quite sure if he should look you in the eye or at the wall over your shoulder. In a very low and calm voice he breaks it to you and tells you that your blood tested positive for a very bad terminal illness where life as you know it would change as this illness progressed. You would become more and more dependent on others such as your family as this illness took hold of you. You would go from being able to do the seemingly simple things you find you always took for granted without even realizing it like walking under you own steam, bathing

As a human first with Christian beliefs, physician assisted suicide would be a moral issue for me. It is

I would without a shadow of a doubt lend my support after viewing the video, in the event that one of my relatives had a terminal condition and wanted to end his or her life by assisted suicide. Likewise, I would support them in light of the fact that, I love them and if this is what they want to do to end their pain and suffering then I will support them any way I can. My constraints in permitting this activity would be to advise them to seek medical assistance, but I would not support them if they decided to shoot themselves in the head. Furthermore, I am totally against using firearms because I feel that it is not right under any circumstances unless you are defending yourself.