ASSISTED SUICIDE

Assisted Suicide

Assisted Suicide

Introduction

Assisted suicide, by definition, is undertaken for the purpose of bringing about death, and in all but six of the U.K. counties, it constitutes the statutory or common law crime of assisting in a suicide or homicide. Again, consent of the patient is no defense (Caplan, 2005). Withdrawing nutrition, hydration, or life support can also constitute a crime under certain conditions. As with active euthanasia, the question is whether the action is taken for the purpose of ending human life, or simply with the knowledge that death may result. If someone withholds or withdraws medical treatment, nutrition or hydration for the purpose of ending life, he or she commits murder, whereas an attending physician is legally permitted (and typically required) to withdraw treatment when the patient has so requested, because the doctor's purpose in doing so is not to kill the patient, but rather to obey the patient's legally binding instructions (Alexander, 2000).

Discussion

Advocates of voluntary euthanasia contend that if a person is terminally ill; is unlikely to benefit from the discovery of a cure for the illness during what remains of his or her life expectancy; is, as a direct result of the illness, either suffering intolerable pain, or only has available a life that is unacceptably burdensome because the treatment entails the person on being unacceptably dependent on others or on technological means of life support; has an enduring, voluntary, and competent wish to die (or has, prior to losing the competence to do so, expressed a wish to die in the event that the first three conditions are satisfied); and is unable without assistance to commit suicide, then there should be legal and medical provisions to enable him or her to be allowed to die or assisted to die (Caplan, 2005).

However, despite the growing support for right-to-die activist groups, especially after the recent Terri Schiavo case where a protracted legal battle to remove her gastric feeding tube almost 12 years after being diagnosed as being in persistent vegetative state resulted in her death, there is still strong opposition to assisted suicide (Chin, 2008). Objections commonly stem from the increased availability of palliative and hospice care, and the concern that one can never have adequate evidence of the genuineness and competence of a dying person's request. Most important, there is concern that if society legally permits voluntary euthanasia, then we will have set foot on a slippery slope that will lead us to support other forms of euthanasia, including non-voluntary euthanasia as well.

Modern society will continue to debate on the topic of legalization of euthanasia, but physician-assisted suicide has indeed now been made legal in some parts of the world with increasing popularity elsewhere, although opposition for it is also based on genuinely grave concerns (Alexander, 2000).

The British Medical Association's (BMA) Code of Ethics does not forbid a physician from prescribing treatments that are likely to result in death, so long as the doctor's intention is not to cause death but to achieve some other purpose ...