For centuries, the issue of physician-assisted suicide has been quite controversial. The contention therein is founded on whether people should be allowed to choose their death or if such actions are unethical. Advocates for physician-assisted suicide purport that, although life is sacred and valuable, people have the right to control the manner in which they die. Apparently, mortality requires that everybody will eventually die, and this is irrespective of how they do. Therefore, according to Dr. Kevorkian’s ideology of physician-assisted suicide, it is insensible to allow people to suffer ( Brody, 1999) . For example, if a person is suffering from terminal ailments, it is advisable that they are granted the wish to die a painless death. Based on this approach, physicians are obliged to help their patients by hastening their death, thus eliminating their suffering. Particularly, individuals suffering from ailments, such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, brain cancer, and muscular degenerative diseases are usually in extreme and unimaginable pain, and this is reason enough for an individual to ask for physician-assisted suicide. Arguably, physician-assisted death allows individuals to die a dignified death, and it should be given superiority over the value of life.
Death with dignity is as important as living an honorable life. Researchers agree that death with dignity refers to the idea of people having the chance to decide their death. This is founded on the notion that if people have the right to live with dignity, the same needs to be replicated to how they die. According to Dr. Kevorkian, people need to be assisted to die with dignity by not being allowed to suffer, particularly if they are diagnosed with terminal illnesses. Dignity, in this context, refers to the idea that most people with terminal ailments live a miserable life due to extreme pain, and this surpasses the need for palliative care as a way to help these individuals (Kaczor & George, 2017). Under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause insinuates that physician-assisted suicide is not in direct violation. That is, death with dignity applies to the idea that the right to refuse treatment is as effective as the right for a person to decide their death. Physicians are, therefore, obliged to act right by administering euthanasia as a way of ending these people’s suffering. The situation applicable to most intractable terminal sickness is that they put patients in situations where their end moments in life are stolen from them. Like in the case of Dr. Kevorkian’s first patient, it was morally justified to aid the patient in dying since it gave her the chance to die with dignity and end the suffering caused by terminal illness.
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On close examination, Dr. Kevorkian implied that assisted death is primarily all about alleviating suffering and unimaginable pain for individuals diagnosed with terminal illness. Particularly, whenever a person is diagnosed with diseases, such as brain damage or an infant being terminally ill, they have the right to ask for assisted death. The element of death with dignity is, therefore, justifiable by the significance of this process. Ethical analysis on euthanasia shows that the idea is supported based on the situation surrounding a specific diagnosis (Orfali, 2011). For instance, the situation with most terminal illnesses is that they do not have a cure. Thus, anybody diagnosed with such a disease experiences a situation of hopelessness. Considering that most of these diseases are associated with causing extreme pain, it becomes pointless for these individuals to live a miserable life in their last days on earth. On this note, most patients diagnosed with cancer have maybe less than six months to live. Based on Dr. Kevorkian’s argument on physician-assisted suicide, it would be pointless to allow such a person to live the remaining days dealing with agonizing pain and no hope for cure. Researchers also view terminal illnesses as being a major cause of depression since most people get into self-denial, and this only worsens their lives as terminally ill patients. Overall, to avoid subjecting terminally ill patients to an undignified life of excruciating pain and depression, it would only be ethical to allow them to die with dignity through physician-assisted suicide.
Death with dignity should be given precedence over a person’s right to life. In history, citizens and politicians have debated issues surrounding the right to a dignified death. Proponents of death with dignity believe that the right to die is ingrained in the liberty to make choices in life (Clark, 2014). The three principles applicable to this are that people have the right to control what happens to their bodies, have the right to privacy, as well as the due process right interests. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is the origin of people’s personal liberty. Based on this clause, people have the chance to decide their own death. The American law, therefore, requires that the government does not interfere with people’s choices in life. For example, the government cannot interfere in profoundly personal aspects of life, such as marriage, family relationships, procreation, education, and contraception. Apparently, this extends to include overwhelming support that grants people the liberty to determine how their last moments on earth will look like. In protecting people’s lives and, at the same time, making sure that this is within the government’s interest, everybody is capable of determining when and how they will die. This outweighs the government’s interests since there is an overall respect for individual liberty in making choices related to their lives.
Medical practice allows terminally ill patients to cease treatment even if it results in death. Historical evidence shows that Dr. Kevorkian’s ideology of the right to die was not a new concept. Data shows that the right to die dates to ancient Roman and Greeks when physicians were granted the chance to voluntarily cause death to their patients rather than allowing them to live a life of prolonged suffering and pain. Legal support advocates that physician-assisted suicide is permissible since it is rooted in the common law of people having the freedom of informed consent (Rababah, 2012). Informed consent grants patients the power to make medical decisions, which involve the power to overcome paternalistic attitudes. Based on this concept, states decriminalize physician-assisted suicide since it does not necessarily threaten society’s inviolability of life. Constitutional concepts also apply to the right of dignified death in that the primary focus is on balancing the state’s interest and a patient’s self-determination and interest.
The due process clause of America’s Fourteenth Amendment supports the right to die. In Washington, the prohibition for physician-assisted suicide was challenged on the grounds that the law on Equal Protection allows patients to decide their death by either asking for euthanasia or rejecting life-sustaining treatment. This gives physicians the right to assist their patients in achieving the goal of dying with dignity. Physicians can approach this by either practicing active or passive euthanasia. Proponents of death with dignity imply that patients can decide their death since this decision is protected by the law (Frank, 2020). This insinuates that the right to die is categorized as a privacy right. Therefore, whenever the issue of a person’s right to die with dignity is addressed, there is the need for the overall issue to be approached from a privacy perspective. In Dr. Kevorkian’s approach, killing the patient was guided by the element of an individual’s right to determining how they live and die. Courts have supported this approach by also basing the right to die with dignity as being based on liberty due process. This perspective establishes that right to die is a fundamental liberty interest, and people can enjoy this right by refusing unwanted medical treatment. Essentially, liberty due process interest is crucial in ensuring that there is no interference by the government. Individual autonomy, therefore, protects the people and also gives them the chance to make a choice to die without any form of interference.
In summation, people have the right to die with dignity by requesting physician-assisted suicide. On close examination, it is clear that most terminally ill patients are subjected to unimaginable pain and suffering. For example, people suffering from a disease such as brain cancer have the right to either ask for active euthanasia or refuse life-sustaining treatment. According to Dr. Kevorkian’s approach, allowing the terminally ill patient to continue suffering is uncalled for. Instead, such individuals need to be granted the chance to determine when and how they die. Primarily, the right to life means that people have the liberty to live a life of dignity, and this ought to be replicated to the issue of dying with dignity. Death with dignity should be given precedence over a person’s right to life. Proponents of death with dignity believe that the right to die is ingrained in the liberty to make choices in life. Legally, the three principles applicable to this are that people have the right to control what happens to their bodies, have the right to privacy, as well as the due process right interests. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is the origin of people’s personal liberty. Thus, people with a terminal illness and legally protected and allowed to make choices regarding when and how they die.
References
Brody, H. (1999). Kevorkian and assisted death in the United States. BMJ , 318 (7189), 953-954. https://doi.org/ 10.1136/bmj.318.7189.953
Clark, N. (2014). The politics of physician assisted suicide.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315805283
Frank, M. (2020). Dignity in Death: Why the Fundamental Right of the Individual to Choose Their Final Moments Outweighs the Government’s Societal Interests to Preserve Life. University of Baltimore Law Review , 49 (2), 137-152. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2066&context=ublr
Kaczor, C., & George, R. P. (2017). Death with dignity. Oxford Scholarship Online . https://doi.org/:10.1093/oso/9780190675967.003.0005
Orfali, R. (2011). Death with dignity: The case for legalizing physician-assisted dying and euthanasia . Hillcrest Publishing Group.
Rababah, D. M. (2012). Physician-assisted suicide: Legality and ethicality. SSRN Electronic Journal . https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2063919
