Physician-assisted suicide denotes a practice in which the patient receives a prescription from a physician with the intention of the patient to use the medicine in ending life. While the healthcare provider issues the medication, it is upon the patient to decide on whether to use the drug to end life. The physician or the health care provider, in this case, facilitates the death of the patient by providing lethal medications to the patients (Sulmasy & Mueller, 2017). For the States that consider physician-assisted suicide legal, there are certain criteria that the patients should meet. One of the requirements is that the patient should be at the terminal stage of illness. The patient should be mentally capacitated and should have the potential to take the drug without the help of the physician. As well, the patients should present both a written and verbal request. Both the consulting and the attending providers should prove that the patients meet the criteria. There are ethical and legal implications associated with physician-assisted suicide.
One of the ethical implications is that the autonomy of the patient should be respected, and the physicians should perform their obliged responsibility of relieving patients from suffering. The proponents presume that assisted suicide by the physician is a practice of compassion that values the decisions of patients. According to Sulmasy and Mueller (2017), patients have the freedom to make decisions pertaining to their life, and therefore they have the power to ascertain the time of death and how they should die. Further argues that patients can experience untold pain in their terminal stage of illness, and therefore physically assisted suicide can help in alleviating pain as it ends the patient's life.
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Professionally, physicians are required to demonstrate the utmost comfort and care to the patients. As well, physicians should not take part in assisting patients in ending their life. The opponents claim that the practice is against the principles of non-malfeasance and beneficence. Such a practice is viewed as a breach of the physician's professional duty. Physicians are required to promote high quality among patients to enhance patient outcomes. Participating in facilitating the patient's death is against the moral responsibilities of physicians. Although the patient's autonomy should be respected, physicians should strike a balance between practice and ethical principles. Physicians jeopardize their potential to offer high-value care to patients when they engage in physician-assisted suicide (Sulmasy & Mueller, 2017). Physician-assisted suicide negatively impacts the therapeutic relationships that exist between the patient and the physician. Throughout their life, patients should be exposed to high-quality care, and their right to high-quality care should not be compromised (Kruk et al., 2018). Physicians should enhance human dignity and manage the patient's pain in the most suitable way instead of facilitating the patient's death.
The role of society is to decrease the death rates in the community. The participation in the physician-assisted suicide alters the professional role of physicians in society. The control of the manner of the person's death and timing of death is not a medical professional role or goal. Physicians should embrace the use of the appropriate resources, appropriate care communication, empathy, and high-quality care, to enhance the outcome of patients even in palliative care (Mohapatra et al., 2015). Physicians should strike a balance between ethical principles and patients' freedom. Although a patient's freedom should be guaranteed, physicians should not jeopardize moral principles and obligations (Sulmasy & Mueller, 2017).
The desire of some of the States to legalize physician-assisted suicide is contravened by ethical principles. States should consider that the legalization of the practice would jeopardize the moral obligations of physicians to provide high-quality care (Sulmasy & Mueller, 2017). Health service managers should adhere to ethical principles and should not facilitate the death of patients. Instead, they should work to alleviate the pain and enhance patient outcome. Even though some States can justify physically assisted suicide for economic reasons such as financial constraints, they should still consider the ethical and moral obligations of physicians.
References
Kruk, M. E., Gage, A. D., Arsenault, C., Jordan, K., Leslie, H. H., Roder-DeWan, S. … Pate, M. (2018). High-quality health systems in the Sustainable Development Goals era: Time for a revolution. The Lancet Global Health , 6 (11), e1196-e1252. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30386-3
Mohapatra, D. P., Mohapatra, M. M., Chittoria, R. K., Friji, M. T., & Kumar, S. D. (2015). The scope of mobile devices in health care and medical education. International Journal of Advanced Medical and Health Research , 2 (1), 3. https://doi.org/ 10.4103/2349-4220.159113
Sulmasy, L. S., & Mueller, P. S. (2017). Ethics and the legalization of physician-assisted suicide: An American College of Physicians position paper. Annals of Internal Medicine , 167 (8), 576-578. https://doi.org/10.7326/M17-0938
