ASSISTED SUICIDE, PRESENT BOTH SIDES

Assisted suicide, present both sides

Assisted suicide, present both sides

Suicide is a practical position for many terminally ill patients in the United States. Dr. Peter Rogatz finds that many of the arguments for maintaining the ban on physician-assisted suicide, but I believe they are outweighed by two fundamental principles that support ending the ban: patient autonomy --- the right to control her own body - and the duty doctor to alleviate the suffering. The Company acknowledges the right of competent patients to autonomy --- decide what will or will not be made to his or her body.

There is almost universal agreement that we are capable adult has the right to self-determination, including the right to accept or reject life-support treatment. Suicide is not illegal, but assisting a person to take his or her own life is prohibited. Marcia Angell, former executive editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, put it this way: "a high ethical imperative of doctors should be to help in whatever way best serves the interests of patients, in accordance with the wishes of each patient, rather than theoretical commitment to preserve life regardless of what the cost in suffering. ... The greatest harm we can do is betray a desperate patient to unbearable suffering --- or force the patient to look for a stranger like Dr. Kevorkian.

States are now involved in promoting the issue of suicide, the adoption of laws that would make it legal to participate in assisted suicide. Writer Lawrence Rudden noted that in 1997, Oregon passed Death with Dignity Act, which makes it the only State to permit physician-assisted suicide. Since then, survived an act of Congress to cancel it, the hearings on his constitutional action, and two voter initiatives in which the residents of Oregon approved ...