Physician Assisted Suicide

Physician Assisted Suicide

Introduction

Life is beautiful. But various cruel incidents of life make our heart and our selves hopeless and dead. Some people cannot bear the pain of these misfortune events that life show to us and ultimately they want an escape from facing all this by choosing death for them. Some people commit suicide on their own while others seek guidance of a physician. The objective of this paper also revolves around the same phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to presents the findings for the legalization of physician assisted suicide. Physician-assisted suicide, also known as PAS, is a practice where a Physician or Doctor provides a patient with medication that the patient requested to end their own life (Emile, 1997). Most people tend confuse Physician-assisted suicide with Euthanasia which is the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependant person for their unproven 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 timely 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

Thesis Statement

Physician assisted suicide should be a legal act in United States of America.

Arguments in support of thesis statement

Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) - the prescription of drugs to a patient that will knowingly result in their death - is a practice that is currently illegal in the UK. It is, however, legal in some parts of the world, notably The Netherlands and Oregon in the USA. Difference in opinion exists on this regard among different physicians, public and patient who wants to commit suicide. An increase in physician assisted suicide of terminally ill patients has been observed. The urge for reconsideration of policies of physician practice is also increasing. Many who support the notion of physician assisted suicide give following arguments for that:

Practicing Right Of Autonomy

Right of autonomy means that the control an individual has to allow what to do or what not to do with his or her body. This right is the absolute privilege of each and every individual and committing suicide under the assistance of a physician seems to be a justified act.

“There is almost universal agreement that a competent adult has the right to self determination, including the right to have life-sustaining treatment withheld or withdrawn” (Rogatz, 52) So, this is obvious from the above statement of Dr. Rogatz that if the pain of treatment or pain of his illness that is incurable of a patient is unbearable he can choose death for himself (Matthew, ...