Assisted Suicide



Assisted Suicide

Rough Draft

The specific issue required to be discussed is the assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is also commonly referred as euthanasia. Physician-assisted suicide, also known as PAS, is a practice where a physician or doctor provides a patient with medication that the patient requested by choice to end their own life. Most people tend confuse physician-assisted suicide with euthanasia which is the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependant person for their alleged benefit. The difference that people tend to overlook is that euthanasia is an intentional act of killing that is forced upon a person and PAS is not. It usually is a normal reaction when people hear about PAS that they automatically think about suicide, but it should not be pushed into the same category. It is the patient's choice to make this decision and not the doctors. Physician-assisted suicide should be legal in all states because the right to a good death is a basic human freedom. The decision to use physician-assisted suicide in dying allows us to act on death as a choice for those suffering with terminal illnesses (Matthew, 2005).

The basic dispute revolving around assisted suicide is whether it should be allowed or not. Advocates of the notion of "aid in dying given by the doctor" or "assisted suicide" are often invoked as models for the U.S. practice of Dutch euthanasia. Although euthanasia is technically a crime, doctors who kill their patients can avoid legal prosecution if they follow the government guidelines. These guidelines require that the patient's suffering must be unbearable and hopeless from relief. The patient is required to see at least one other doctor, then only euthanasia and the death is reported by the physician (Hendin, 2007).

For some, it should be because it is the patient's help instead against patient's illness and suffering. The purpose of euthanasia is calling the death of a terminally ill patient, as painless as possible, taking into account that this patient has no hope of life, and has had to endure all the suffering involved in a disease of those characteristics. One of the first modern legal battles over the right to die occurred when the parents of Karen Ann Quinlan sought to remove her from life support. In the 1976 case, In re Quinlan, the New Jersey Supreme Court weighed the state's interests in preserving Quinlan's life against her constitutional privacy interests. The court held that the right to privacy protects a patient's right to refuse life-sustaining treatment, and that this right is not extinguished by the inability of the patient to exercise it personally (Keown, 2001).

For some, it should not be allowed because it is another form of murder and killing. The World Medical Association considered it unethical and condemns both assisted suicide and euthanasia. On the other hand, recommendation is made for palliative care. Some doctors believe that progress in the treatment of pain and suffering (palliative care) make euthanasia unnecessary. The legal system of New York State's ban on ...