book

Legalizing Physician Assisted Suicide

21 Pages 1553 Words 1557 Views

Physician-assisted suicide involved one person providing the means to help another person commit suicide. This is often found in many medical cases when one feels like death would be a better option rather than continuing their life. Although euthanasia may be similar to assisted suicide, it differs greatly. Assisted suicide is mainly the patient who will administer the main action, while in euthanasia, the physician acts directly. This topic has become a very big controversy over the fact if someone should have the right to end his or her own life. Legalizing physician-assisted suicide should be categorized as a right that people should have when it comes to being able to make their own choice when facing death. Physician-Assisted Suicide is only legal in Oregon, Washington, and Montana within the United States. Outside of the United States, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland also authorize the assistance for the patients. One example of a physician-assisted case would be Brittany Maynard, who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She was only twenty-nine years old and her life expectancy went from years to about six months. After being diagnosed with this severity of her brain cancer, at the age of only twenty-nine years old, she decided to end her own life. She felt more comfort knowing that she wouldn’t have to die the way it was described to her, meaning her tumor taking over and ending her life. For her, she felt more peace with the fact of being able to make her own actions when it came to death. There are many benefits when it comes to assisted suicide legalization, but a few are the most important. For example, a patient would be able to die with dignity instead of have the illness take their freedom of capability away. When a patient gets really ill, they usually lose capability to preform certain tasks they used to be able to do. Therefore, they may need someone, whether it is family or a nurse, to help them with everyday tasks and their own personal care. For the patient, they then begin to feel like they are a burden to others. In some cases, someone may have to be put on a ventilator and may lose the capability to feed themselves on their own. For many people, they don’t want to get to that point. It becomes unfair and they do not want to live their life like that. Another main benefit for the patient would be that the outrageous amount of pain and suffering would be lessened. Physician-assisted suicide may help ill patients feel like they have some type of control and decision in life when it comes to the way they die. Physician-assisted suicide may be the best option for certain people and their families (Morrow). According to the statistics of

Read Full Essay