Brittany Maynard was a 29-year old female who was diagnosed with brain cancer with less than six months to live. She decided that instead of suffering, she wanted to follow through with Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS), according to Kayla Asbury in her story, The Right to Die: Benefits of Physician-Assisted Suicide. If you were in the same situation Maynard was in, what would you do? Would you suffer until your last dying breath, or would you put yourself out of that misery and ask for PAS?
Physician-Assisted Suicide has been a very controversial topic for many years. The major spark of the controversy was when Maynard lived in California when she was first diagnosed, but then moved to Oregon to take her own life. According to the Merriam-Webster
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There are only three states that PAS is completely legal in; Washington, Oregon, and Vermont (Asbury). Lewis states in his article, Access to Physician-Assisted Suicide Is an Unalienable Right,: “In 1994, 51% of Oregon’s voters supported the “Death with Dignity Act,” and 60% reaffirmed it in 1997” (Lewis). Even over 20 years ago, people were in favor of the act and believe that it should be a patient's choice to choose how they want to die. However, what most people don’t know about PAS is that there are rules and protocol that have to be followed. A patient has to be diagnosed terminally ill by two doctors, but be deemed mentally stable. The patient also has to be informed of all the options available like pain killers and even hospice care. Next, there is a fifteen day waiting period from the day the patient's decides on PAS and the time they are allowed to take the prescription. However, a doctor can’t shove the pills down the patient's throat, it’s ultimately the patient’s decision on whether or not they will take the …show more content…
He believes that Physician-Assisted Suicide would take advantage of patients, it ruins medicine and the relationships between patients and doctors, it’s a violation of family values, and it deceives human dignity (Anderson). However, when the patient is asking for assisted suicide, there is no proof that performing PAS abuses patients. Along with the fact that there is a protocol that has to be taken in order for the patient to receive the drugs to end their life. Next, it doesn’t ruin the relationship between the doctor and the patient because the patient would have to trust the doctor enough to tell them about their feelings, along with the fact that the doctor doesn’t force the patient to take the medication. As well as the fact that PAS is the next step in medicine until researchers have a breakthrough and cure cancers. No doubt, it could compromise families; however, in most cases, the families are supportive through the process. In fact, Asbury states, “Physician-assisted suicide also lessens suffering for the family and friends of terminally ill patients” (Asbury). Meanwhile, those against PAS proclaim that PAS deceives dying with dignity, but what they don’t realize is that when the patient is dying, he or she wants to die in a way that everyone will remember them in the way that the person was before they became sick. They want to be remembered in an
Brittany Maynard is a women who recommend to people to take assisted suicide because she does not want to see people suffer from pain. However, the author do not agree with her idea. She said that Maynard’s reasoning has a huge flaw. She suggested that people do not choose suicide lack dignity in order to people even take palliative medication but they still suffer pain, personality changes, and verbal, cognitive loss.
Physician assisted suicide or PAS is a controversial topic in the world today. But the important question is, should physician assisted suicides be allowed in cases such as: the patient’s suffering is far too great and there is no chance of them getting better? This is a highly debated issue, that has activist groups on both sides fighting for what they think is the right thing to do. Physician assisted suicides can stop the excruciating pain a patient is in, especially if there is nothing that can be done to stop the pain. Or it can be done for a patient that fully understands that there is nothing that can be done to save their life, so as not to put their loved ones into financial hardship. In this
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.
Ezekiel Emanuel once said, “Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia have been profound ethical issues confronting doctors since the birth of Western medicine, more than 2,000 years ago.” Physician assisted suicide (PAS) should be available as a dignified option for the terminally ill because it can be built in to the palliative care plan formulated by patient and Doctor, may alleviate some medical costs for the incurable, and it’s a moderated and humane way to end a person’s suffering.
In the United States today, only several states legally recognize physician-assisted suicide as an option for families and terminally ill patients hoping to embrace a death with dignity. Although there is a growing movement to promote access to physician-assisted suicide, the topic is still widely regarded as taboo. As of 2016, the states of Washington, Oregon, Vermont, Colorado, New Jersey, and California are the only states to allow full and legal access to physician-assisted suicide. Alongside those states are Montana and New Mexico, which legally offer “aid in dying,” meaning the state allows for physicians to assist in alleviating the longevity of the dying process.
Not everyone who has chronic diseases has the opportunity Brittany Maynard had. Not only do they have to suffer, but their immediate family has to watch their quality of life slowly become nonexistent. Instead of watching them suffer, we as a government should legalize physician-assisted suicide so that people who are terminally ill can die with dignity and in peace. Imagine watching an immediate family member suffer each day they are alive and they have no choice but to wait until the day their organs fail to be at peace. It is not a pretty situation, but it is the best alternative in situations like
In the video “Brittany Maynard Explains Why She’s Choosing Physician-assisted Suicide at 29”, Brittany Maynard takes a very strong position for assisted suicide. Her video reached a large audience when it was released in 2014, as she was the first person to not only openly support assisted suicide, but also then use it herself when she chose to die at age 29 due to her terminal brain cancer. Her purpose is to show people that choosing assisted suicide doesn’t mean someone is suicidal, but rather that they want to choose to die peacefully rather than in a degrading and painful way, like the one her future with stage four brain cancer would bring her. Maynard states, “There is a difference between a person who is dying and a person who is suicidal. I do not want to do. I am dying.” Maynard takes a significantly more personal and emotional take on the issue, comparable only to Jennifer Medina’s article in the New York Times where she interviews patients who have decided to use physician-assisted suicide to end their lives. However, Maynard shows a much more personal perspective in her explanation of why she chose to move to Oregon to obtain a lethal prescription under Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, and the struggles she went through in coming to that conclusion, as opposed to
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.
A tough issue on the rise in the United States is whether or not Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) should be legal. Physician Assisted Suicide allows a physician to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a patient to end their life. However, the patient has to take the drugs on their own. PAS would be only offered to those suffering from a terminal illness with less than six months to live. The way these patients go about treating and or living with a terminal illness is a very hard decision to make. This is the first time they have been given the choice of how they wish to die. PAS is an option that allows the sick to avoid the immense pain in their final months. The issue however, is whether this allows them to die with dignity or if it allows them to be taken advantage of.
Although PAS has been around for several years, many people have a misinterpretation of what physician assisted suicide or PAS really is. In the early 1980s, Dr Kevorkian was widely known in the media for having assisted terminally ill patients with ending their lives. Dr. Kevorkian, an outspoken supporter of PAS was somewhat of a pioneer in this area however, he was arrested and put
(“Should Physician-Assisted Suicide Be Legal?”). Basically what it say is that patients should not be press by their families to choose physician assisted suicide. Therefore, patines shouldn’t tell their family how they want to die. If they choose physician assisted suicide they should keep it to their self or tell someone they trust and press them to do nothing. Physician assisted suicide should be legalized because it’s not harmful. But it should be controlled and not take advantage of it. Most of the ill patines have gone to court and argue that they don’t have the strength to “suicide” them self, for example, “In the U.S. Supreme Court case Vacco v. Quill, doctors argued that while a competent person has the right to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment, another competent patient does not have the right to seek assistance to kill himself.” ( “The Debate Over Physician-Assisted Suicide”). Basically what this is debate is saying, is that most ill patients don’t want to “kill” them self. Therefore, most of the patines should really make a good decide of how they going to take their last breath. Another article say that “ill people are arguing that they are
According to the Death with Dignity National Center, basic eligibility requirements for physician-assisted suicide include that a patient must be “18 years of age or older, a resident of Oregon, Washington, or Vermont, capable of making and communicating health care decisions for him/herself, and diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months.” Fortunately several steps are set in place to make that patients are deemed appropriate for the end-of-life medication such as requiring that a minimum of two physicians confirm that all of the mentioned criteria have been met. Furthermore, two verbal requests that are separated by fifteen days, one written request made in the presence of two impersonal sources, the ability to repeal the request at any time, and the requirement that the patient must be able to self-administer and ingest the prescription independently protect individuals from coercion that would hasten their death against their will. Physician assistance for the dying would not be appropriate in cases where an individual is unable to make the decision independently with full understanding of the choice and its consequences. It would also be unfitting in cases where it is not the individual’s will to end his or her own life, since one of the
The story of Brittany Maynard continues to sweep the nation and has sparked a highly controversial debate concerning the legality and ethicality of assisting in one’s death. When twenty-nine year old Maynard was diagnosed with neuroblastoma and given less than six months to live, she made the difficult decision to pick up and move to Portland, Oregon. Oregon exists as one of only four states that have legalized assisted suicide (Egan 60-64). In Oregon, she legally ended her battle with cancer in a dignified manner (Egan 60-64). The American Heritage Dictionary defines euthanasia as, “the action of inducing the painless death of a person for reasons assumed to be merciful” (Morris 453). There are more people than just Maynard who are strong
A person who is dying of a terminal illness is faced with only one certainty; they will die from this disease. A doctor can say roughly the amount of time that a patient has, but they exact date and level of pain is hard to determine. Many may look to a physician for the answer on if they should/shouldn’t choose PAS, however, the only role a physician plays is giving the medical diagnosis and working with the patient to get what the patient feels is the best option. Therefore, the decision the patient makes doesn’t make the physician a moral guide, but rather a person doing their job. The last big decision people who are terminally ill have is when/how to die and it has to be their own and it has to be respected.
In 1994, Oregon voters passed the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, which exempted, “from civil or criminal liability physicians who, in compliance with specific safeguards, dispense or prescribe (but not administer) a lethal dose of drugs upon the request of the terminally ill patient.” Oregon, to this day, remains the only state within the Union to allow physician-assisted suicide. In 1997, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case that, although there was no constitutionally protected right to physician-assisted suicide, states have permitted to pass laws allowing it. Thus, the issue of euthanasia remains widely open to philosophical, political, legal, and ethical challenges.