Assisted Suicide – Legalisation or Criminalisation? Discuss.
In the past years, assisted suicide has been an issue of large controversies throughout many countries. However, something that I believe is one of the main problems, is that many people are confused between two different ideas – assisted suicide and euthanasia. Assisted suicide is basically when a patient who suffers an incurable disease, which causes a lot of pain, is given the necessary drugs to commit suicide. However, the patient must make the final act of ingesting the drugs, by his own means and can't be helped by anyone else. Euthanasia, on the other hand, is when another person is the one who actually takes the final move in finishing the patient’s life. As we can
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For me, the most important advantage of legalising assisted suicide is the basic fact that the patient with the incurable and painful disease stops suffering. As any humans, hospital patients should have the rights to end their lives whenever they should want to because that is part of what living in a democratic country means. People should be able to do whatever they want, as long as they don’t harm anyone else’s health or interests. That is why I believe that just like humans in everyday life commit suicide when they can't cope with life anymore, hospital patients should have the same rights. Even though I understand that taking a life is a very important and irreversible decision, I can imagine that in very extreme cases, the pain is so large, that the patient might have resigned him/herself that the best thing was just to die.
Assisted suicide also disables the family of the hospitalized person to observe their relative or friend suffering. To see your relative suffering, is something horrible, undesirable for anyone and it can even destroy whole families. When members of a family see their relative in pain, it is true that a melancholic mood spreads out to all the indirect victims, like a disease. This makes the people much more prone to have discussions and fights, sometimes leading to parents getting separated and/or divorced. Statistics prove that 12% of all divorces in Britain are caused because of the fact that an ill person in
Imagine you have a terminal illness. You are in immense, overwhelming, and constant pain, and it grows hard to bear. The medical bills are rapidly rising to keep you alive, and you know your family is going into debt. Waking up every day hurts more than the last, and the doctors say you have a month, if that, to live. They have checked your results and they know there is nothing you can do but wait. You often find yourself wishing there was a way you could have a peaceful, safe end to everything, surrounded by your family and loved ones. They can get out of debt and go back to their normal lives, and you will be in good hands and choose when you go. Assisted suicide is the practice that can allow an individual to do just that. It is when one
The first side is that Aided Suicide is immoral. One reason for this comes to religion. People that are religious believe that a person is committing sin if they commit suicide. While these methods, not traditionally considered suicide, are viewed as similar. With suicide comes mental illness, the senior, not showing signs of depression or mental issues, is still thought of sinful. Another thought is that, if a person is in pain, where they are should have ways to make sure the patient is comfortable. A facility should have resources that could allow for better outlooks on life or better pain management. Facilities such as hospices are built around sustaining life, but even those can cause pain. For example, someone who is close to passing may show signs of near death, but still, know what they want to do. They may not eat anymore or have interest in any activities, but they know that they are ready to go on and pain-free at
Assisted suicide, whose life is it? In reality it is the person’s life, and if they are suffering from a terminal illness they should get to choose whether or not they want to suffer. One very aggressive form of a terminal illness is the Glioblastoma Multiforme. This type of brain tumor is more common than a person may think it is also very deadly (Markert). Who is to say a person can’t end their terminal illness, pain, and suffering? They are just like every other human being who wants to die with dignity.
Assisted suicide can open the floodgates for anyone to medically end their life, even if they are not ill. Laws are put in place to
Naturally, people want to protect their families, and patients who acknowledge they will eventually die try to lessen the financial struggles for their families by choosing suicide. To “immediate family” seeing a loved one “suffering” is “unbearable,” and while they would love to keep them alive, “sometimes” “the cost is” just “too much” for them to bear, (“The Right to Assisted Suicide.”) It is heartbreaking that a sick person may choose immediate death simply because of medical costs. Further, when someone is in pain, the first instinct is to help, and to comfort them; in some cases, the only way to do this is to end their life. The patient shares why they are able to trust their physician: “A doctor’s job is to relieve pain,” (“The Right to Assisted Suicide.”) When trying to help a person in a tremendous amount of pain fails, a final action to help them must be made. Finally, people always want to put up a brave front, even in the face of death; them accepting their death and choosing suicide, they are trying their best to be strong for their loved ones. While discussing a person’s right to choose death, Humphry stated, “”Every competent adult has the right to die in a manner and at a time of their own choosing,” (“Assisted Suicide.”) A patient choosing suicide is seen as
If assisted suicide was legal terminally-ill patients or ones in long term pain, they could end their lives with dignity. Many people liv the end of their lives out in a hospital or hospice were they die “bedridden, ulcerated, in a puddle of waste, gasping for breath, loopy on morphine, hopelessly demented in s sterile hospital room” (Source 4, P.4). This
Assisted suicide should be allowed in severe cases because there are often many cases of being severely ill. People should have the right to choose whether they want to continue with their lives or have it ended although others can argue otherwise. Patients would rather end their own lives rather than continue living in pain. It would be best if they were to get help and get it done in a place which the family will know rather than finding the body elsewhere. Many deaths occur daily regardless of assisted suicide or not and many debates going on about whether or not assisted suicide should even be an option. There is a place that separates relief from dying and killing so patients should not be considered killed with assisted suicide. Instead, they are relieved from the pain they were in. Patients do not want to suffer, they are the ones feeling all the pain in their systems, not anyone else. Assisted suicide should be an option because people choose whether they want to live or not, suicides are attempted regardless, and the bodies from suicides would
be fed orally because of blistering in the mouth and throat. Any movement of the
Assisted suicide is the act of committing suicide with the help of another person or doctor, most commonly referred to as Physician Assisted Suicide. It is currently legal in Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana, California, and Colorado. Considering the increase of people dying from terminal illnesses, assisted suicide should be legalized across the nation. People that suffer from a terminal illness that can’t be cured or treated and will result in death have the right to end their suffering and die with dignity. However, there are people who are against assisted suicide due to religious and moral reasons, others because of their compassion and respect for those who are dying. Although the majority may not agree in making assisted suicide legal in every state, there is an agreement that no one should ever suffer because they are denied the right to stop suffering. Terminally ill patients also have rights just like normal, healthy citizens do and they should not be denied the right to not suffer.
Today, voluntary euthanasia is getting closer to being legalized in more than just one state in the United States. “‘Voluntary’ euthanasia means that the act of putting the person to death is the end result of the person’s own free will” (Bender 19). “ Voluntary euthanasia is an area worthy of our serious consideration, since it would allow patients who have exhausted all other reasonable options to choose death rather than continue suffering” (Bender 19). The question of whether or not voluntary euthanasia should be legalized is a major debate that has been around for years. Because the issue of whether people should have the right to choose how they want to live or die is so complex. With the advances in technology today we have made
What is euthanasia and why is it such a complex matter that raises all different kinds of opinions? According to the American Dictionary, euthanasia is defined as "the act or practice of ending the life of an individual suffering from a terminal illness or an incurable condition, as by lethal injection or the suspension of extraordinary medical treatment." It can be active euthanasia (relieve person from pain by killing) or passive euthanasia (letting die). Newell-Smith raises the questions if the person has
Everybody faces death eventually. While some people abhor the impending experience, others may await it excitedly. Regardless of one's expectations, most people do not wish for a painful end. If a situation arises where one must make a decision concerning approaching death or the death of loved ones, most people would hope for the least possible suffering. While a decision like this is extremely difficult to make, many people choose death as opposed to living in agony. However, others think that euthanasia is reprehensible no matter what the circumstances are. Author Cheryl Eckstein believes, "Killing in the name of compassion and mercy is wrong" ("Can there ever", par. 9). Homicide and
When someone is inevitably dying and in inexplicable pain is it really a crime to grant their wishes and end their suffering? As of right now euthanasia is illegal in many countries and is a very controversial topic. Is it compassion for the patient helping them in ending their life or murder? The doctor is not giving death as an option, it is the patients choice and even where it is legal there are many rules. Euthanasia should not be considered a crime because the patient is not being murdered; they are having their suffering end in a painless, humane way out of compassion for the patient and their family.
“Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right to a merciful death.”
Euthanasia is a word that comes from ancient Greece and it refers to “good death”. In the modern societies euthanasia is defined as taking away people’s lives who suffer from an incurable disease. They usually go through this process by painlessness ways to avoid the greatest pains that occurs from the disease. A huge number of countries in the World are against euthanasia and any specific type of it. One of the most important things being discussed nowadays is whether euthanasia should be legalized or not. This essay will focus on comparing positive and negative aspects of euthanasia in order to answer to the question whether euthanasia should be legal or not.