Assisted suicide is the act of intentionally killing an individual to prevent prolonged suffering in the event of any medical condition. It is defined as death that is supported by another individual who may be a physician in some cases. In most situations, most people provide medication to provide patients resulting in death. Most medical practitioners practice euthanasia whereby doctors may administer lethal drugs to a patient leading to their death. In most states in the USA, the ethical debates of the physician-assisted suicide have become prominent since the year 1990. Besides that, by the year 1997, the USA’s Supreme Court made rulings against the physician assisted suicide. However, the court did not make laws prohibiting assisted suicide in the state. Instead, it allowed the states in the USA to make decisions regarding the assisted suicide. By the year 2013, some of the states such as Oregon, Montana, as well as, Washington has legalized the act of physician-assisted suicide (Ezekiel et al., 2016).
Various reasons exist as to why most individuals would opt for requesting the act of physician-assisted suicide. According to Gostin, L. & Roberts, (2016), most people do not prefer assisted death because of pain. Most patients willing to end their lives through the help of physicians may frequently suffer from hopelessness, depression and other stresses, which is wrong since there exists chances of recovery. In addition to that, some of the other motivations of assisted suicide may include the physical anatomy of an individual and fatigue at the ends of their lives that may lead to the inability of participating in the most enjoyable people. In the United States of America, states such as Oregon have already legalized the process of assisted suicide by the year 2005. Besides that, Montana was the third state in the United States of America to legalize physician-assisted deaths (Knaplund, 2013). Some of the reports indicated that most of the patients that opted for physician-assisted suicide were young, not married and had achieved higher education levels.
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Various arguments have been suggested in support of the assisted suicide. Most supports of the illegal act tend to claim that most of the physicians’ have the responsibility of relieving suffering. In addition to that, the medical suffering provided to every individual may not be helpful in alleviating a patients’ pain. Most doctors may argue that assisted suicide is a compassion act that is aimed at respecting the autonomy of an individual. Additionally, the claim that it would be wrong and unethical to leave patients in a state of unbearable pain with the uncertainties concerning the ability of a doctor to honor the desires of a patient hence causing a rift between the relationships of the physician and a patient (Radbruch et al., 2016). Further, most proponents of this act argue that individuals have the right of seeking the administration of medicines that may hasten their death. Importantly, patients at the verge of mortality opt to end their lives through deep sedations or the withdrawal from the life hold up the machine. Notably, the decision to commit assisted suicide is always given by a patient. Human beings have the right to decide what happens to their bodies hence most of the supporters of this motions claim that the right gives an individual the right to assisted suicide.
Physician-assisted suicide is an illegal act. The arguments provided supporting the assisted suicide is baseless since an individual with any ailment has a chance of recovery. As a result, assisted death may lead to premature death. In most cases, the assisted suicide does not heed to the principles outlined in the Hippocratic Oath that governs medicine for several years (Coleman, 2016). The oath was first implemented in the Greek preventing the introduction of any deadly drug to an individual asking for it. Importantly, not consenting to the pleas from a patient to end their lives does not imply that a medical practitioner does not show any acts of sympathy. Instead, sympathy is a term used to mean suffering demonstrating that any doctor is obliged to remain with a patient throughout any struggle. No medical practitioner has the right of ending the life of another (Bulmer, Bӧhnke, & Lewi, 2016). However, the recruitment of individuals to provide comfort and peace to individuals would be critical while dealing with spiritual problems. Therefore, most importantly, consenting to physician-assisted death may destroy the relationship between a patient and a doctor (Yang & Curlin, 2016). Moreover, it may result in the demoralization of the role of a physician of a healer.
In my opinion, assisted suicide is illegal and crime, as well as, violation of the health care act. In most cases, physicians have the role of playing of delivering palliative care to patients. Thus, the legalization of the act may deny the palliative care provision from any medical personnel. Besides that, I argue that the legalization of the process may lead to the widening of possibilities for both abuse and misuse as well. In the event of the legalization of the assisted suicide, most of the medical practitioners would practice the act on patients that are not suffering from the non-terminal diseases. Moreover, the legalization of the process may cause the society to believe that the people living with disabilities should be subjected to the process hence becoming the legitimate candidates for the assisted suicide process. Further, assisted suicide may lead to a premature death of a person who may have recovered from a particular ailment.
In conclusion, this paper discusses on assisted suicide. It has focused on the various reasons that have been presented for the implementation of the process. In addition to that, the paper has looked for the different reasons as to why and as to why not it should be implemented. Importantly, physician-assisted suicide is wrong and should not be an allowed act in any state of the world that values an individual’s life. In this paper, I have given my personal opinion, which suggests that assisted suicide should be banned since nurses, and doctors’ primary responsibility is to deliver palliative care to the patients.
References
Bulmer, M., Bӧhnke, J., & Lewi, G. (2016). Predicting moral sentiment towards physician-assisted suicide: The role of religion, conservatism, authoritarianism, and Big Five personality. Personality and Individual Differences , 105 , 244-251.
Coleman, F. (2016). Priests Who Minister To Patients Regarding Physician-Assisted Suicide. Health Progress . Retrieved from http://www.chausa.org
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD1; Bregje D. Onwuteaka-Philipsen, PhD2; John W. Urwin, BS1; et al (2016). Attitudes and Practices of Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Clinical Review & Education , 316(1) , 79-90.
Knaplund, K. (2013). “Montana Becomes Third U.S. State To Allow Physician Aid In Dying”. Ethics in Medicine .
Gostin, L. & Roberts, A. (2016). Physician Assisted Dying: A Turning Point? Georgetown University Law Center . Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub?utm_source=scholarship.law.georgetown.edu%2Ffacpub%2F1614&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages
Yang Y& Curlin FA., (2016). Why Physicians Should Oppose Assisted Suicide. JAMA. 315 (3):247-248. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.16194.
