Assisted Suicide Essay - 1534 Words

A large percent of terminally ill patients ponder their impending death, no matter the diagnosis. Mental illness or degenerative disabilities are the majority of the cases involved in ‘assisted-suicide,’ which is the process of ending their life with help from another person. Assisted suicide, despite the chronic or degenerative illness, has caused great controversy. The debate arises when the question about whether or not the practice should be legalized is asked. Some say that every person has a God given right to do what they want with their bodies, when they want to do it. Others say that palliative staffs should be focusing on studying better ways to eliminate pain and make the process of passing on easier and more endurable.†¦show more content†¦Physicians and doctors deem requests for death made by people who are ‘not mentally adept’ not rational, well thought-out decisions. As Mr. Buchanan includes in his article, Waiting Around to Die, â₠¬Å"†¦We want to limit suicide to those who are unarguably rational†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Buchanan, 2). This calls for the medical staff to go to the next of kin; a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, anyone who can be held accountable for the person with a disability. But no one can say that another person should decide the fate of someone else. If a doctor cannot do it, certainly no one else should be deciding. Lest the actual patient grants the permission to someone else to decide, none other than the patient himself should be deciding the fate of said person. At that point, the permission would not even be taken seriously because of the person’s lack of ‘adeptness’. One also has to take into account that the elderly are included in this labeled group. Quite contrary to belief, a study established that end-of-life issues, such as terminal illnesses and autonomy loss, â€Å"did not turn out to be the common causes of real-life suicide among the elderly† (Buchanan, 30). When the decision about whether the patient is to die to end suffering or not is put into the hands of another human being, the right to choose to die is not being handled correctly. The idea that is being expressedShow MoreRelatedA Brief Note On Assisted Suicide And Suicide1062 Words   |  5 PagesAfter researching assisted suicide I have more questions than when I started. The definition of assisted suicide is very factual: suicide facilitated by another person, especially a physician, who organized the logistics of the suicide, as by providing the necessary quantities of a poison (The definition of assisted suicide 2016). After much research I have learned that assisted suicide is an option one has to make depending on their moral standards, will to live, and how they want to die ratherRead More Euthanasia Essay - Assisted Suicide1579 Words   |  7 PagesAssisted Suicide/Euthanasia      Ã‚   Remarkably, few have noticed that frail, elderly and terminally ill people oppose assisted suicide more than other Americans. The assisted-suicide agenda is moving forward chiefly with vocal support from the young, the able-bodied and the affluent, who may even think that their parents and grandparents share their enthusiasm. They are wrong.    Thus the assisted suicide agenda appears as a victory not for freedom, but for discrimination. At its heartRead MoreDoctor Assisted Suicide And Suicide1585 Words   |  7 PagesDoctor assisted suicide is a topic that has recently become a much larger debated issue than before. A timeline put together by Michael Manning and Ian Dowbigging shows that prior to Christianity, doctor assisted suicide was something that was tolerated, and was not heavily questioned (2). Yet, in the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas had made a statement about suicide as well as doctor assisted suicide, and his words shaped the Catholic teaching on suicide into what they teach today. Beginning in theRead MorePhysician Assisted Suicide Should Be Legal1578 Words   |  7 PagesOne of the alternative options is Physician-Assisted Suicide; defined as the voluntary termination of one’s own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician (â€Å"Physician-assi sted†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ). In layman’s terms it means that a physician administers medications to the patients to use on their own terms, and it’s entirely up to the patient whether or not to ingest the medication. I know Physician-Assisted Suicide is a practical solution to terminally ill patients’Read MoreEssay Problems with Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide1262 Words   |  6 PagesEuthanasia Problems      Ã‚  Doctors do err on cancer patients survival times, so how can they say when the time is ripe for assisted suicide. A study in the July 1 issue of Cancer, the journal of the American Cancer Society, finds that doctors are often wrong in predicting how long terminally ill cancer patients will live. After studying the accuracy of doctors predictions regarding 233 patients with end-of-life cancer, the researchers found most doctors had a tendency to overestimate survivalRead MorePhysician Assisted Suicide Essay1214 Words   |  5 Pagesrelentless pain and agony through physician assisted death? Physician-Assisted Suicide PAS is highly contentious because it induces conflict of several moral and ethical questions such as who is the true director of our lives. Is suicide an individual choice and should the highest priority to humans be alleviating pain or do we suffer for a purpose? Is suicide a purely individual choice? Having analyzed and even experience the effects of physician assisted suicide, I promote and fully support its legalityRead MorePhysician’s Assisted Suicide1063 Words   |  5 Pagesthe question may arise as to whether or not third parties should be allowed to intentionally end the life of the patient or help the patient commit suicide. Physician’s assisted suicide should be a legal option for terminally ill patients all throughout the United States. Currently in the US there are three states that have physician assisted suicide laws in place. Oregon was the first state to pass a law allowing physicians to help end the lives of the terminally ill. This law was called the 1997Read MoreThe Legalization of Assisted Suicide1291 Words   |  5 PagesAssisted Suicide has through out history caused controversy among our society. There are two sides to this issue, one that passionately supports it, and those who religiously disagree. I believe that assisted suicide should become legal for several reasons. Assisted suicide gives individuals the right to end their suffering when they personally feel that their time has come to die. Assisted suicide should become legal because if one can decide to put an animal out of its misery, why shouldn’t thatRead MoreThe Choice Of Assisted Suicide1314 Words   |  6 Pag esthe law so patients are allowed to lawfully receive assistance to peacefully pass away. The acceptability to acquire â€Å"assisted suicide† has been designed into five factors. It is the combination of a patient’s age, curability of illness, degree of suffering, mental status, and extent of patients requests for the procedure. Moreover, no discussion on assisted suicide is complete without looking into the experience of Oregon, which was the first state in the U.S. to pass the Death with DignityRead MoreEuthanasia and Assisted Suicide1645 Words   |  7 PagesEuthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are actions at the core of what it means to be human - the moral and ethical actions that make us who we are, or who we ought to be. Euthanasia, a subject known in the twenty-first century, is subject to many discussions about ethical permissibility, which date back to as far as ancient Greece and Rome. It was not until the Hippocratic School removed the practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide from medical practice. Euthanasia in itself raise s many