In this report people who do not want to suffer lingering, painful deaths, the state should have no right to enforce the prolongation of life someone in pain who doesn’t want to live anymore. No one should be forced to continue living if they do not have the will to live anymore. Physician assisted suicide could be the answer to a lot of problems. Physician assisted suicide is defined as “the act of bringing about the death of a hopelessly ill and suffering person in a relatively quick and painless way for reasons of mercy. Based on a recent study, 57% of physicians practicing today have received a request for physician-assisted suicide in some form or another. Not only could legalizing be a blessing to society, but the government could also greatly benefit from legalizing physician assisted suicide as well. I will discuss Physician assisted suicide and why we as U. S citizens should have the right to die. It protects The Right to Die: Legalizing Physician Assisted Suicide
If someone wants to take their own life, obviously they have a reason for that, you may not think it’s a good reason, I may not think it’s a good reason, but it should be a decision for that person to make. That’s were The Right to Die would take place. By legalizing physician assisted Suicide also known as PAS we are giving the Right to Die to the society, the citizens of the United States. However it already is legalized in Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and very few states in the U. S (Washington, Oregon, and Montana) it should be legalized in all states in America.
A few other states are making efforts to legalize assisted suicide. But soon Congress may put a stop to it everywhere. Legal or not, assisted suicides occur, it would be better if they were brought into the open. Physician suicide needs to become more known and recognized medical practice throughout the United States. Nowhere in the constitution does it state or imply that the government has the right to keep a person from committing suicide. After all, if the patient and the family agree it’s what they want to do, whose business is it anyway? Definitely not our government!
In a country that’s supposedly free, this should be a fundamental right. Without physician assistance, people may commit suicide in a messy, horrifying, and traumatic way. Not only would Legalizing physician assisted suicide be a blessing to suffering people who have lost the will to live but also benefit our government greatly. Unfortunately there are those people against making physician assisted suicide legal. Which tend to be very narrow minded bible thumpers, who have no done all their research on this topic, in my opinion. The cons against PAS would be would violate doctors’ Hippocratic Oath; It demeans the value of human life.
It could open the floodgates to non-critical patient suicides and other abuses. Many religions prohibit suicide and the intentional killing of others Doctors and families may be prompted to give up on recovery much too early. Government and insurance companies may put undue pressure on doctors to avoid heroic measures or recommend the assisted-suicide procedure. Miracle cures or recoveries can occur. Doctors are given too much power, and can be wrong or unethical. All doctors would have the choice rather or not to participate in PAS no one will force them.
It is the own person choice no one else’s doctors can not recommend PAS therefore insurance companies can’t put pressure on doctors to avoid heroic measures. As for doctor’s violating doctors’ Hippocratic Oath according to Philip Nitschke, MD (June 5, 2001) retrieved from http://euthanasia. procon. org/view. resource. php? resourceID=000126 “Over time the Hippocratic Oath has been modified on a number of occasions as some of its tenets became less and less acceptable. References to women not studying medicine and doctors not breaking the skin have been deleted.
The much-quoted reference to ‘do no harm’ is also in need of explanation. Does not doing harm mean that we should prolong a life that the patient sees as a painful burden? Surely, the ‘harm’ in this instance is done when we prolong the life, and ‘doing no harm’ means that we should help the patient die. Killing the patient–technically, yes. Is it a good thing–sometimes, yes. Is it consistent with good medical end-of-life care: absolutely yes. ” For the people saying doctors are given too much power when it comes to PAS, they aren’t given too much power.
The patient is. And the patient should have all the power after all it’s their life. Laws against PAS were made to prevent abuse and protect people, but no one is being protected by being forced to suffer. Everyone’s going to die one day, we all hope to die without pain and suffering we don’t want to become a burden to our families and we don’t want to die in a hospital. Most people wish to die with dignity, in the comfort of their own home and near family in peace. Why not give that option to people. It’s difficult to see a loved one in such anguish for so long.
It’s emotional and physically draining to have the stress drawn out for so long. And when the patient does eventually die, it’s often sudden or it follows a period when the patient has lost consciousness. Doctor-assisted suicide would give the patient a chance to say his final goodbyes and end his life with dignity. According to Dr. Marcia Angell, a medical ethicist at Harvard Medical School and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine supports the bill. Her father shot himself to death in 1988 as he was battling painful metastatic prostate cancer. If it was something that was legal and accepted, I think he would have lived longer and I think it would have been much easier for the family,” Marcia Angell (1988) retrieved from http://www. cbsnews. com/8301-204_162-57540997/physician-assisted-suicide-up-for-vote-in-mass/ Nowhere in the constitution does it state or imply that the government has the right to keep a person from committing suicide.
In a country that’s supposedly free, this should be a fundamental right. We as citizens of the U. S should be entitled to the Right of Death. ACLU Amicus Brief in Vacco v. Quill (Dec. 0, 1996) retrieved from http://euthanasia. procon. org/view. resource. php? resourceID=000126 “The right of a competent, terminally ill person to avoid excruciating pain and embrace a timely and dignified death bears the sanction of history and is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. The exercise of this right is as central to personal autonomy and bodily integrity as rights safeguarded by this Court’s decisions relating to marriage, family relationships, procreation, contraception, child rearing and the refusal or termination of life-saving medical treatment.
In particular, this Court’s recent decisions concerning the right to refuse medical treatment and the right to abortion instruct that a mentally competent, terminally ill person has a protected liberty interest in choosing to end intolerable suffering by bringing about his or her own death. A state’s categorical ban on physician assistance to suicide — as applied to competent, terminally ill patients who wish to avoid unendurable pain and hasten inevitable death — substantially interferes with this protected liberty interest and cannot be sustained”.
Not only will legalizing could legalizing physician assisted suicide be good for the people who wish to end their life on their own terms with their dignity, but it’s also good for our society in many ways. Such as Health care costs could be reduced, which would save estates and lower insurance premiums. Anything we can do to reduce that burden helps. Considering the cost of keeping a dying patient alive for several months, even years you must pay for x-rays, lab tests, drugs, hospital overhead, medical staff salaries, etc.
The cost adds up quickly to keep some patients alive. It is not this the best way to spend our money when the patient himself would like to die. The money is better spent on the patients that can be saved! You also have to consider the drag on a dying patient’s estate. Most people want to be able to leave their children and grandchildren with something when they die. Medical costs eat into that estate. It’s totally unreasonable to pour this kind of money into patients that just want to end their suffering.
As Medicare and other government programs accelerate the United States towards bankruptcy, anything that causes a decrease in total costs needs be a consideration. If our government doesn’t care for the well-being of the people and their wishes maybe they would care more when the financials of this problem is talked about. Insurances would save money by covering PAS. The society would greatly benefit people as individuals wouldn’t be forced to suffer until their death losing the quality of life and their friends and family wouldn’t have to witness their loved ones in such misery.
Another way PAS would benefit society would be managing worlds over population, let’s face it our world is critically over populated leading to environmental problems and chaos, People who have lost the will to live shouldn’t have to live anymore their just suffering and taking up space in this over populated world. Their just waiting around to die they should have the option to die sooner than having to wait. Not all elderly people only the ones who have lost the will to live anymore and are greatly in pain and suffering.
It may sound a bit cruel but our society would benefit. With all that being said, Physician assisted suicide should be legal in every state in America. We need to be entitled to our right to die. PAS needs to be more talked about. It should be a medical option/treatment. PAS would save a lot of money in the long run, given the opportunity to die with dignity, the chance for families to not have to watch their loved one suffer, could help our over populated world. There are so many benefits to the Right to Die. Physician Assisted Suicide should be legalized!
