Physician Assisted Suicide

Introduction

Physician-assisted suicide is not a new invention. Voluntary euthanasia and physician with the help of suicide were widely practiced in ancient Greece and Rome to make the people of high social rank of prolonged suffering. Hippocratic Oath, with its position in relation to the doctor with the help of death, represent a minority opinion among the Greek physicians, while it was written (Brogden 2001).

Nowadays, the topic of the doctor using the physician assisted suicide has gained popularity in the United States thanks in part to help publicize the death of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, and in particular the Americans and the general concern about the suffering of a painful, slow, and unworthy of death in accordance with the medical care that may appear to prolong dying, but not necessarily life (Benoliel and Degner 1995; Lattanzi-Licht and Connor 1995).

At the heart of the dispute over the doctor with the help of the physician assisted suicide is an individual right to choose death to the society a duty to protect its most vulnerable members from hastened, and not entirely voluntary death. The discussion is often limited in cases involving persons with incurable diseases, but sometimes it is expanded to include people whose quality of life has become "unbearable" (Girsh 2000, Koch 2000; Ogden 2000).

Thesis Statement

People should have the right at the end of his life to avoid prolonged suffering.

Discussion

The physician-assisted suicide can be defined as the end of life, usually for terminally ill patients, through voluntary self lethal medication prescribed by a doctor directly, for this purpose. This is seen as morally distinct from euthanasia because the doctor did not lead to the death of the patient, but gives the patient a choice of time and circumstances of his or her own death.

How society responds to any questions a doctor with the assistance of suicide is an important window into how it defines the priorities in the cost and quality of life of its individual members, one that forces to study praxes families, health care systems, educational programs, and social networks. The desire to die often branching from the lack of feasible if the current / likely to be no enhancements to the quality of life, including disability housing, educational and professional opportunities, the emotional and material support, and palliative medical and / or psychological assistance. In this regard, the provision and promotion of an alternative fast, simple and economical of death, as the decision of life problems requires a maximum control.

The law on the promotion of physician suicides are often ambiguous. In the United States, the practice is legal only in Oregon. He is also a legitimate practice in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland, and was allowed a period of nine months in the Northern Territory of Australia, ending in 1997. This practice is legal, although because of social stigmatization, virtually non-existent in Japan. If physician-assisted suicide is right or wrong, it implies the existence of any physicians and biomedical ethics, which are justified in practice.

Ethical framework for assisted suicide follows ...