Physician
assisted suicide is the practice of aiding a patient in ending his or her life
to relieve pain or suffering. A physician will “provide a competent, terminally
ill patient with a prescription for a lethal dose of medication, upon the
patient's request, which they will use to end his or her own life.”(Washington)
It is up to the patient to decided whether and when to take the lethal
medication. Physician-assisted suicide should be an option for incurably ill
patients; the right to die should be a freedom for the sick.
Since people do not have the choice
to be brought into this world, they should then have the right to take them
selves out painlessly. The constitution does not state nor imply the federal
government has the authority to keep a person from committing suicide or from a
doctor assisting in a person’s death. The
government does not have the moral right to let the sick endure misery. In a
country that is free, this should be a basic right for the suffering.
Furthermore, “patients can die with
dignity rather than have the illness reduce them to a shell of their former
selves and avoid tremendous pain.” (Balancedpolitics) My grandmother suffered
from dementia along with depression. She was no longer herself after a year of
the diagnoses. It was sickening to see her mind wither away to a dark place. My grandmother progressively got worse until
she took her life by jumping off the roof. The autopsy showed that she was
still alive three minutes after the fall. If physician assisted suicide were
legal in the state of New Jersey, my grandmother could have passed peacefully
and painlessly. She was still mentally competent to participate. She would have
been fully aware of the choice she was making. It could have saved our family from the pain
of knowing how much it must have hurt her to still be breathing for those three
minutes. I feel ashamed she had to let her self go in such a fashion. Because
of this experience, I firmly believe doctors should be allowed to prescribe
lethal medication to the ill for them to die with dignity.
However, some argue physician
assisted suicide could be taken advantage of. To the contrary, laws can be
established to prevent the abuse of disturbing lethal medication to people. For
example, Oregon holds precedent that laws can be created to prevent abuse and “protect
the value of human life.”(Balancedpolitics) Under Oregon’s Death with Dignity
Act, “ After the request is made, another physician must examine the patient's
medical records and confirm the diagnosis. If the request is authorized, the
patient must wait at least fifteen days and make a second oral request before the
prescription may be written. If
either physician determines that the patient's judgment is impaired, the
patient must be referred for a psychological examination.”(WordPress) Laws such
as these can prevent the unnecessary prescription of lethal medication.
Physician Assisted suicide offers a
painless, humane, and orderly way for incurably ill patients to end their
lives. It reduces the chance of a horrifying attempt to commit suicide such as
overdosing, using a gun, or jumping off of a building. Strict laws can prevent
doctors from prescribing the lethal medication to patients who are not
terminally ill. In the end, physician assisted suicide should be legal in every
state for the sick since it is ones own right to kill themselves and not the
government’s.
Work Cited
Messerli,
Joe. "Should an incurably-ill patient be able to commit physician-assisted
suicide?" Balancedpolitics. Web. 6 Nov. 2013. <http://www.balancedpolitics.org/assisted_suicide.htm>
Ethics In
Medicine. University of Washington School of Medicine, 1998. Web. 5 Nov. 2013.
<http://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/pad.html#ques5>.
Globe,
Diane. "Death With Dignity Laws." WordPress. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
<http://dianegoble.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/death-with-dignity-laws/>.
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