The Suicide Health Prevention Hotline

Physician Assisted Suicide Is it Right or Wrong? The ethical issues of physician-assisted suicide are both emotional and controversial, as it ranks right up there with abortion. Some argue physician assisted suicide is ethically permissible for a dying person who has choosing to escape the unbearable suffering at the end of life. Furthermore, it is the physician’s duty to alleviate the patients suffering, which at times justifies providing aid-in -dying. These arguments rely a great deal on the respect for individual autonomy, which recognizes the rights of competent people to choose the timing and manner of their death, when faced with terminal illness.

The word suicide gives many people negative feelings and is a socially taboo subject. However, suicide might be beneficial to terminally ill patients. Physician- assisted suicide has been one of the most controversial modern topics. Many wonder if it is morally correct to put a terminally ill patient out of their misery. Physicians should be able to meet the requests of their terminally ill patients. Unfortunately, a physician can be doing more harm by keeping someone alive instead of letting them die peacefully. For example, an assisted suicide can bring comfort to patients. These patients are in excruciating pain and will eventually perish. The government should not be involved in such a personal decision. A physician- assisted suicide comes with many benefits for the patient. If a person is terminally ill and wants a physician assisted suicide, then they should receive one.

However, there is immense criticism on the morality of the process, especially because the process denies a patient the right to natural death. The critics of the assisted suicide procedure argue that such a process devalues human life and tends to promote suicide as an alternative to personal suffering. By claiming that the procedure allows terminally ill patients to initiate dignity at death is flawed because the purpose of medical profession is to ensure a dignified life. According to the physicians’ code of ethics and the Hippocratic Oath, physicians are not allowed to do harm to their patients because their role is to allow a dignified health for members of the community. Consequently, legalization of Physician Assisted suicide that requires physicians to assist the patients to die is against their medical ethics. Quill, Cassel, & Meier (2010) provide that although the patients voluntarily ask the medical practitioners to assist in the process, the practitioners have a role to advise the patients against such a procedure. Besides, such a premise is bound to raise awareness of suicide as an alternative to suffering within the public domain, which may encourage such behavior among healthy members of the community that feel that they enjoy the freedom to make such a decision. On this basis, the negative moral implication of assisted suicide makes its legalization unworthy in the

Suicide is one person’s personal decision; physician-assisted suicide is a patient who is not capable of carrying the task out themselves asking a physician for access to lethal medication. What people may fail to see however is that the physician is not the only healthcare personnel involved; it may include, but is not limited to, a physician, nurse, and pharmacist. This may conflict with the healthcare worker’s own morals and there are cases in which the patient suffers from depression, or the patient is not receiving proper palliative care. Allowing physician-assisted suicide causes the physician to become entangled in an ethical and moral discrepancy and has too many other issues surrounding it for it to be legal.

Physician-assisted suicide can be described as the act of a terminally ill individual obtaining a lethal prescription in order to exercise their right to die with dignity. Though physician-assisted suicide is highly controversial, it is legally practiced in a small number of states within the United States. Much of the controversy surrounding physician-assisted suicide relates to the social, political, and ethical questions and considerations concerning the practice. Regardless

Compare two people to see who is the doctor? First person should do everything to save people lives and the second person who is give drug to the patient to die. The doctor is the first person. Job of physicians is to kill pains, not to kill people. A doctor must always bear in mind the obligation of preserving human life. Reduce pain is an important issue to be addressed. If a patient seek death because they cannot stand the pain; the first concern of doctors should care about is the reduce pain, not the way to make they died. For patients unconscious for a long time, many people believe that patients should be able to die, but it is not clear; how they can identify that patients want to die while the patient is no longer able to communicate. They will use all knowledge and ability of medicine to save lives rather than using the ability and developing the medicine to kill people. The doctors and nurses using any way of human intervention to end the life of a patient are still considered as a murder. Choosing to die over pain is like running away from the problem. Death - with people who are wearing white shirt is a failure, failure of the life, medical failure, and failure of the doctor. The doctor and nurses should not entitle to surrender with the death. Anyway, the true remains life still has the values higher than the death. And now, with the advancement of science, the terminally disease cannot cure in couple months, but it can be cure in the future. Instead of creating the euthanasia drug, they should create new medicines that might ease the pain, not completely cure the disease but at least lessen the pain experience by the patient. The implementation of assisted suicide is totally contrary to medical ethics that is to heal rather not

Many people in the world are suffering from illness that cannot be cured. They live their last days in pain and suffering wondering when and why it happened to them. Instead of suffering, many people dream of suicide to take their pain away but they know no one would understand. In very few states, it is legal for people to get assistance to put them out of their pain and suffering. It is called assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is the help from a physician to end their patients’ lives with their permission. The patient must have a terminal illness with less than six months to live to qualify. Many people are against assisted suicide because they believe that it is just a cover for murder. People should be thought of as dying with dignity

When talking about doctors, death and incurable diseases, one of the most controversial topic that comes up is Physician assisted suicide. Webster’s dictionary define it as, “suicide by a patient facilitated by means or information (as a drug prescription or indication of the lethal dosage) provided by a physician who is aware of how the patient intends to use such means or information.” Most of us have experienced the pain of seeing our loved ones dying in a hospital since doctors and modern medicine can only help us so much. Physician assisted suicide not only helps alleviates the never ending pain, but patient also dies with dignity. On the other hand, people who oppose it, have strong religious and ethical beliefs. They think that Physician assisted suicide demeans the human value and violates doctor’s Hippocratic Oath. After researching a lot about this topic, I decided that taking a moderate stance would be the best option because even though I agree that PAS (Physician assisted suicide) goes against medical ethics and religious beliefs I also believe that sometimes PAS is the best option available for people who are fatally sick and want to die with dignity and peace. In this paper I will discuss the history of physician assisted suicide, why is it important to have this option available and how should we limit PAS to make a compromise with people who are against it.

According to Humphry physician-assisted suicide is giving a patient a legal drug to help them die. (2) When patients give up on life because of intense pain and not wanting their family to see them go through so much suffering, and lose hope in God, they turn to self-murder with assistance. Humphry also states, "assisting in dying means being present during the happening and giving love and moral support to the act."(19) Christians whether relatives, church members or friends, use their faith and trust in God to comfort people in time of sorrow and grief. In spite of

Physician-assisted suicide is “the voluntary termination of one's own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. Physician-assisted suicide is the practice of providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life” (MedicineNet.com, 2004). Many times this ethical issue arises when a terminally-ill patient with and incurable illness, whom is given little time to live, usually less than six-months, has requested a physician’s assistance in terminating one’s life. This practice with the terminally ill is known as euthanasia. Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia is a controversial topic

Millions of people suffer from terminal illnesses and diseases everyday. Many of those people, especially those living in uncomfortable facilities and those deteriorating, have a strong desire to die with dignity. The subject of physician assisted suicide goes hand in hand with self induced suicide and euthanasia. The issue with physician assisted suicide is that society is not willing to help the issue because a majority of society views it as unethical and morally wrong. The subject is more so focused on the practice of the doctor rather than the pain and the suffering of the

The topic of discussion is one of the most controversial topics in the last decade physician-assisted suicide. This occurs when a physician assists a terminally ill or disabled person to take their own life. Assisting either by giving the physical means or instructions on what method to use to commit suicide with. There are many moral and ethical arguments; some are based on religious beliefs while others are based on the rules of medical ethics. It can be argued that the terminally ill and the disabled should not be forbidden from taking their own lives. It goes against all regularly accepted laws of medical ethics for a doctor to assist in the suicide of a patient. Physicians pledge to not harm patients (Hippocratic Oath).

Physician-assisted suicide is a very controversial topic in the medical field. It is a topic that has been debated over for years. Webster’s dictionary defines this terms as, “suicide by a patient facilitated by means (as a drug prescription) or by information (as an indication of a lethal dosage) provided by a physician aware of the patient’s intent” (Merriam-Webster). In other words, it is a way that when a patient is ill, they can commit suicide with the help of a physician. This practice is legal in some states in the United States and in many countries around the world. This topic is so controversial because people disagree on whether it is ethical to help someone end another person’s life. There are many people that advocate this and there are also many people that disagree with helping someone commit suicide.

The controversy of a doctor assisting their patient who is already dying, end their life sooner to save them from continuous unnecessary pain and agony has been the topic of controversy for years. The practice of euthanasia is in my opinion a mercy and should not be banned because in reality it doesn’t physically hurt anyone. You could say it hurts the patient but then again that patient is already in tremendous pain or in an incapacitated state of no recovery, as in paralyzed or brain damage etc., so in reality it would actually help them by assisting ending their pain by assisted suicide. A doctors job is also always help their patients and the practice of assisted suicide in many ways is actually helping the person. However there has and probably always will be people who do not agree with the idea of a dying person end their life for sooner than nature had intended. This demographic would suggest that by dying by your own hand or assisted by a physician for medical reasons is still considered plain suicide. And for the religious people it is a sin by their beliefs. The people could also argue that it is not a person’s right to make that decision.

As patients come closer to the end of their lives, certain organs stop performing as well as they use to. People are unable to do simple tasks like putting on clothes, going to the restroom without assistance, eat on our own, and sometimes even breathe without the help of a machine. Needing to depend on someone for everything suddenly brings feelings of helplessness much like an infant feels. It is easy to see why some patients with terminal illnesses would seek any type of relief from this hardship, even if that relief is suicide. Euthanasia or assisted suicide is where a physician would give a patient an aid in dying. “Assisted suicide is a controversial medical and ethical issue based on the question of whether, in certain situations,