Assisted Suicide: Blurring the Moral Lines Between Right and Wrong

In almost every case of a terminal disease, pain is intolerable and seeing someone in such agony is heartbreaking. For example, Brittany Maynard, a 29 year old brain cancer patient who had to move to Oregon so she can avail of the Death with Dignity act. “Maynard knew that her form of brain cancer would be excruciating. She would endure swelling of the brain that would very likely cause seizures, painful headaches and the gradual loss of bodily function. Doctors know that for about 5 percent of the population, no amount of morphine can block the agonizing pain the terminally ill endure” (EDITORIAL: Dying with dignity). Palliative care can often be provided for the dying patients and alleviating pain to provide comfort for the dying has always been the priority. “Palliative care focuses on relieving the symptoms, particularly the pain, of incurable illness.” (Palliative Care) But, in relieving pain through the prescribed medications there are also side effects that are caused by the prescribed pain suppressors and two examples will be lethargy and it compromises breathing. In most cases the effectivity of the pain medication may no longer alleviate the pain. If a patient will be in such agony for the remaining days or weeks the quality of life is no longer present. The agony of pain prevents a patient from performing even just the bodily functions.

There has been an increase in the interest of euthanasia and assisted suicide for the terminally ill in recent years (Williams 1997). The most obvious reason for someone wanting to end their life is to end the suffering they are going through once the illness goes beyond being bearable.

It is justifiable to relieve patient's pain even if you're hastening death. A patient is allowed to withdraw from cancer treatment, even if the end result would be certain death, this concept is known as passive euthanasia. Though some people may not agree with withdrawing from cancer treatment, most can accept it is the patient's decision. Unfortunately, just allowing a patient to die can still involve immense amounts of money, scarce supplies, and more of the physician's time. Even doomed to die terminally-ill patients can still be in great pain and understandably want to end their suffering. Relatives will feel grief after a loved one passes, but they would have anyway. Relatives will at least feel some comfort in the fact that the person they love got to die at a time of their own choosing. Assisted suicide affords them the option to end their life on their own

Now that I’ve demonstrated that my ethical theory can be used to make educated decisions in situations that we can potentially face daily, how does my ethical theory fit with issues of life or death? My ethical theory focuses more on issues that an individual will face in their everyday life. It does not directly deal with issues of life and death; however you can still go through the core concepts to make a decision. For instance, let's take a look at assisted suicide.

Brittany Maynard was given six months to live after being diagnosed with the deadliest form of brain cancer; she had recently just turned 29. To make matters worse, doctors had told her she would suffer from the tumor in a slow and painful manner before succumbing to death. Maynard decided she would die on November 1, a few days after her husband’s birthday under physician-assisted suicide. Unfortunately, she had to relocate from California, where her friends and family lived, to Oregon in order to fall under the “Die With Dignity” act. According to euthanasia.procon.org, only four states in the whole country have legalized assisted suicide. Unfortunately, there are many like Maynard, who have to relocate and leave their home or go through a long and strenuous court battle to receive this treatment plant. This is due to the disapproval of physician-assisted suicide.

Physician-assisted suicide can be defined as suicide by a patient facilitated by means or information (such 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, but can be categorized as egregious. The ethical controversy of whether the legalization of physician- assisted suicide should take place in America is one to be disposed of. With no regard to religion, the catastrophe of physician-assisted suicide can be demonstrated through the law, The Constitution of the United States, the ethical controversy in regards to the Hippocratic Oath, and the prolonging of suffering. Rejecting God’s gift of life to us, directly defying the word of

id you know, from “1998 to 2003, 171 patients died using AS” according to The Oregon Department of Human Services (Ersek, 50). AS stands for Assisted Suicide and Physician Assisted Suicide is the practice of providing a terminally ill patient with a prescription for medication to use with the main intention of ending his or her own life. “These actions included delivering the prescription for a lethal drug dose to the patient’s home, helping the patient take the lethal dose by crushing a medication and adding it to ice cream or pudding, placing the medication in the patient’s mouth, or instilling the medication into an enteric tube” (Ersek 51). The right to assisted suicide is an important topic that alarms people all over the US. The controversies

P3:2 “Assisted Suicide: Make Assisted Suicide Legal for the Terminally Ill In America,” a document written in English 1010 addresses legal and ethical issues of legalizing assisted suicide for terminally ill patients and posits the question “assisted suicide mercy or murder.” Terminally ill patients should have the right to choose how and when they die. There are three reasons patients should have the right to choose death; the first, some patients experience uncontrollable pain; the second, loss of quality of life; the third, palliative care requires the direct intervention of a physician, but assisted suicide allows a physician to write a prescription and the patient chooses when they die. Although some patients have positive results with

Death is not a topic that many people are comfortable with, some people believe it is outrageous for others to play God and decide when to end their lives. While this is true for people with normal pains, there are those who feel they have the right to choose their own fate because they cannot bear their pain and suffering anymore. These are people that are terminally ill, people who were diagnosed with a deadly disease without a cure and feel that death is the only way to relieve that pain. These people has gone through many treatments that are slowly becoming less and less effective. Even though the treatment isn’t working, the patients still have to live through the pain from the treatments. Terminally ill

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,

A woman suffering from cancer became the first person known to die under the law on physician-assisted suicide in the state of Oregon when she took a lethal dose of drugs in March, 1998. The Oregon Death with Dignity Act passed a referendum in November, 1997, and it has been the United States ' only law legalizing assisted suicide since then. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, more than 4,000 doctors have approved of the assisted suicide law (cited in "The Anguish of Doctors,” 1996). The law allows terminally ill patients who have been given six months or less to live and wish to hasten their deaths to obtain medication prescribed by two doctors. The most important thing to notice is that this law does not include those who have been on a life support system nor does it include those who have not voluntarily asked physicians to help them commit suicide. The issue of doctor-assisted suicide has been the subject of the heated dispute in recent years. Many people worry that legalizing doctor assisted suicide is irrational and violates the life-saving tradition of medicine. However, physician-assisted suicide should be legalized because it offers terminally ill people an opportunity for a peaceful death and recognized the inadequacy of current medical practice to deal with death.

Assisted suicide (euthanasia) can often be a very difficult issue to discuss. Assisted suicide is the suicide of a patient suffering from an incurable disease, affected by the taking of lethal drugs provided by a doctor. We don’t want to take another person's life but on the other hand we do not want to elongate the process of dying. This is one of the biggest debates that goes on in the medical field. Is it right? Is it wrong? We all have different opinions, none of which we can actually prove are correct. Assisted suicide, also known as Euthanasia, is only legal in the following six states and Washington DC; Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California, Montana Colorado. Thirty seven states have specific laws prohibiting assisted suicide,

Over the last thirty years the fight over assisted suicide has earned a spot in the national spotlight, for both positive and negative reasons depending on your stance on the issue. There have been challenges made based off the constitution, the right to privacy and moral reasons for both sides. While there have been many notable persons of interest during this time some have helped the cause as others have hindered progress.

The deliberate act of ending another 's life, given his or her consent, is formally referred to as euthanasia. At present, euthanasia is one of the most controversial social-ethical issues that we face, in that it deals with a sensitive subject matter where there is much uncertainty as to what position one ought to take. Deliberately killing another person is presumed by most rational people as a fundamental evil act. However, when that person gives his or her consent to do so, this seems to give rise to an exceptional case. This can be illustrated in the most common case of euthanasia, where the person who is willing to die suffers from an illness that causes great pain, and will result in his or her demise in the not-so-distant future.

Is assisted suicide your right as a human; is it moral or ethical? First we must look at what is assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is a common term that most people know of, suicide that is facilitated by another person. (Dictionary.com) However, there are three terms that are sometimes used interchangeable when discussing assisted suicide; physician assisted suicide, assisted suicide and euthanasia. Physician assisted suicide is when a physician intentionally gives the patient the method of suicide, such as pills. Assisted suicide involves a layperson or a non-physician who is equipping the patient with the means to kill themselves. Euthanasia is when the person is directly killed by