Physician-Assisted Suicide definition

A certain amount of suffering and pain is intolerable to both the individual going through it and their loved ones. Patients who are terminally ill or disabled deal with this kind of pain, which makes it impossible for them to carry on with their everyday lives. Even more painful than experiencing pain yourself is witnessing someone you care about endure without having the power to make them feel better. Some patients elect to end their lives rather than go through this much suffering because they believe it to be the only way to end their pain and the pain of the people they care about. The patient is assisted by a physician or other medical professionals; they provide physical means such as prescription drugs or instructions on the method that they can use to commit suicide. The act is referred to as physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia; it is usually recommended for patients who have been given six months or less to live by the doctors. (Redbruch, Lukas, et al. 109) A female cancer patient was the first person known to have died under the law of physician-assisted suicide in Oregon United States when she took lethal drugs in March 1998.

Physician-assisted death has been a controversial topic in the world; some people argue that it is a terrible thing while some say that it is a good act. Having the option to relieve the pain of a terminally ill or disabled person is however not an evil act and should be highly encouraged to a person that is willing to go through the process to offer them a peaceful death.

Arguments on Physician-Assisted Suicide

Allowing a person to go through physician-assisted suicide is a good way of relieving the suffering that they go through, it reduces the time in which the patients have to endure the pain. Some patients experience an immense amount of pain to the extent that they no longer wish to prolong their lives which can be an expensive process artificially. When death is inevitable patients have the right to choose between asking for medical aid in dying to shorten the dying period. The pain disrupts the day to day life of a person, reducing their ability to participate in activities that make life enjoyable. Physician-assisted suicide, therefore, gives the patient a dignified send-off by allowing him/her to choose when to die. The patient also has a right not to be forced to suffer, that is guaranteed by the European declaration of human rights. Making someone to live who does not wish to continue to live can in some instances be seen as a crime.

Physician-assisted suicide gives the patient the right to decide when and in what way they should die in a situation where they are ill, it is a critical decision because dying is regarded as a human right (Sannita, Walter 39). The Oregon death with dignity act (ODDA) enables physicians to assist terminally ill patients to end their lives by prescribing lethal doses of medication. (Le Blanc, et al. 34) Keeping a person alive against their own will using technology is cruel and inhuman especially when the person is experiencing pain. This process gives the patient the right to decide when they will die and how the process will be carried out. Another argument that supports this process is that helping patients to leave the world in peace and with dignity, enables the patient not to watch their lives and body decaying as they continue to get sick and their families have to watch them suffer. The process is also beneficial in that it allows patients to take their lives by providing a more comfortable option as opposed to when the patients decide to take their own lives through other means such as disconnecting the tubes which can be prolonged and incredibly painful. Without the assistance of physicians, people may commit suicide in ways that can be messy, traumatizing or horrifying.

The process is also beneficial as it reduces health costs. The healthcare costs in the United States are rapidly increasing, nearly half of the federal budget is comprised by Medicaid, Medicare and social security. Physician-assisted suicide, therefore, helps to reduce health care costs which can be transferred to other patients. The doctors and the nurses are also given the time to focus on other patients that urgently need the care and those that have a chance of living.

The pain of the family’s patient is also reduced. Watching a loved one suffer as their health continues to deteriorate can be very painful since the family is aware that they cannot be able to help them in any way. The death that is assisted by physicians helps to reduce the amount of time that family members watch their patients suffering, it shortens the suffering period for the family and even when the patient dies they are comforted by the fact that the patient died under their own will and that they did not suffer for long (Walthour, Melanie, 437). The patient’s vital organs can also be used by other patients that are in dire need of the body parts. The organs are donated while they are still in conditions that can be used by someone else as opposed to allowing the patient to die naturally while the organs have been affected to the extent that they cannot be donated. This therefore helps to save the lives of other people.

There are people who are opposed to the idea that physicians should be able to help people in committing suicide. The first argument that they put across is that it asks doctors to violate the Hippocratic Oath that all the doctors are required to take before they are licensed to start practicing medicine. The oath requires the doctor to preserve the life of patients making every possible effort to do so. They argue that the purpose of healthcare professionals is to save the lives of people and not take them away. However, a patient has the right to decide whether they will live or not since it is a personal decision. Medical professionals should be able to admit that they cannot solve a problem and therefore accept the will of the patient to let them die.

Another argument is that physician-assisted suicide can lead to involuntary death, this slippery slope conjecture argues that small steps lead to a chain of events that are difficult to stop once they are started. They say that patients, therefore, die due to the end of life decisions that are made without their consent. However, the slippery slope argument is just an exaggeration since assisted suicide can be passed without getting out of control.

Some people also argue that terminally ill patients wish to commit suicide because they tend to have negative thoughts, are hopeless and depressed. (Emmanuel, et al. 81) The patients have this feeling because of the right of effective treatment, anxiety over expensive medical fees and that they have a burden of the family taking care of them. They argue that the patients are very depressed to make logical decisions, this is not the case since, for a patient to be assisted by a physician in committing suicide, and they undergo a series of tests to be able to determine whether they are in the correct state of mind before the process is carried out. 6

Advancement in medical technology has also been used as a way of arguing against suicide that is assisted by a physician. They claim that a person illness can be cured in the future and therefore a patient needs to wait, they argue of a possibility of coming up with a cure before it is too late. To them, acceptance of physician-assisted suicide delays the discovery of treatments for terminal illnesses. However, this is not the case since the right to end the life of someone is a very personal decision, and doctors work to save the life of people. Physician-assisted suicide can even be used as a way of motivating medical professionals to come up with a cure quickly to reduce the cases of assisted suicide. They also argue that it is unfair and it goes against many religions which consider it as a sin, going against human ethics and morals.

Conclusion

Many arguments are for and against physician-assisted suicide. However the assisted suicide should not be seen as a bad thing, it is a very well thought process that helps patients to stop there suffering and have a dignified death. The patient is given the ability to end their life peacefully and according to their terms. Family members are also relieved of pain that they would feel for a long period if the patient was alive, watching them suffer without the ability to help them. The process should therefore not be discouraged; a patient should be given the right to decide on whether to end their own lives or not.

Work Cited

Emanuel, Ezekiel J., et al. "Attitudes and practices of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the United States, Canada, and Europe." Jama 316.1 (2016): 81.

LeBlanc, M. L., et al. "Usage of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act (DWDA)." Journal of clinical oncology: official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology 34_suppl (2016).

Radbruch, Lukas, et al. "Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: a white paper from the European Association for Palliative Care." Palliative medicine 30.2 (2016): 109.

Sannita, Walter G. "Commitment to life and the right to die." European Journal of Internal Medicine 41 (2017): 39

Walthour, Melanie. "Competently, Knowingly, and Voluntarily Dying with Dignity: Why States That Allow Defendants to Volunteer for Execution Should Allow Terminally Ill Patients to Die in a Dignified and Humane Manner." Ariz. Summit L. Rev. 9 (2016): 437.