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.

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competent adult has the right to self determination, including the right to have life-sustaining treatment withheld or withdrawn” (Rogatz, 52)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.

Fulfillment of doctor's duty

An indispensible and foremost duty of a doctor is to give relief to the patient in best possible way.

“The highest ethical imperative of doctors should be to provide care in whatever way best serves patients' interests, in accord with each patient's wishes, not with a theoretical commitment to preserve life no matter what the cost in suffering” (Rudden, 67)

This suggests that sometimes it happen that process of cure or treatment is so hurting for the patient and sometimes patient suffers from a sort of illness that has no cure but he continues to suffer from pain so in this situation it is preferred that instead of waiting for natural death to occur it is better to make the patient die under the guidance and assistance of a physician.

Saving an individual from harm

Dying on your own terms is still dying; ultimately, pathology and somatic death will triumph. If physicians can help patients die a good Dying on your own terms is still dying ultimately, pathology and somatic death will ...