Physician Assisted Suicide



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Physician Assisted Suicide

Thesis

Physician assisted suicide should not be legalized mainly because the profession of medicine is made to save lives, not to provide assistance to suicides.

Introduction

This paper intends to discuss various important aspects related to physician assisted suicide. Physician assisted suicide is the most important and most debated topic within the field of medicine these days. Physician assisted suicide basically refers to the practice of providing an end to someone's life intentionally in order to relieve pain and suffering. Physician assisted suicide is commonly known as 'Euthanasia' which is a 'Greek' word having a literal meaning of 'good death.' The purpose of this paper is to argue against the legalization of physician assisted suicide. I believe that the physician assisted suicides must remain illegal because I am not in the favor of ending someone's life intentionally. Moreover, the duty of physicians is to save lives, not to provide assistance to suicides. Arguments and counter arguments will be provided in the paper respectively before reaching to a succinct conclusion in relation with the appropriate thesis.

Discussion

Argument

The profession within the field of medicine has the basic objective of providing quality care and the best possible environment to the patients in order to treat them effectively. The ethical codes and conduct provided to the field requires all the professionals to follow the ethical codes created for the profession. I believe that physician assisted suicides must remain illegal. The active use of physician assisted suicides ends up with taking someone's life which is completely against the professional requirements of physicians. The ethical codes for the profession of medicine requires all the professionals to provide comprehensive, humane, and timely care to all the patients. Doctors, physicians or even nurses must not support ending of someone's life intentionally (Vandekieft, 2005).

There has been an argument about the role of physicians which is assumed to protect and preserve human life in every circumstance. Utilizing active euthanasia or physicians assisted suicides for the purpose of ending someone's life completely negates the basic purpose of the profession. The basic purpose of the profession within the field of medicine calls for physicians to restore health and provide quality care to all the patients, even to those who are at the verge of dying. The medial ethics do not allow physicians to terminate anyone's life intentionally, no matter what the situation any patient is going through. The ethics of medical professions completely negates the use of physician assisted suicides. Legalizing physician assisted suicides will reduce the authenticity of the field of medicine (Smith, 2006).

Moreover, people trust physicians and other medical personnel that they will save the lives of their loved ones at any cost. Legalizing the physician assisted suicides will change the image of the medical professions which are mainly related with non-malfeasance and sanctity of life. According to Thomas and Luis in 2012, the advanced medical technologies allow nurses and doctors to enhance the quality of life and even the human life span ...