Assisted Suicide A.K.A.

Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS)

Death is always lurking and in the shaded background of everyones lives.

Unfortunately you cant always prevent dying, but maybe we could make it our choice.

The definition of assisted suicide found on google states, The suicide of a patient

suffering from an incurable disease, affected by the taking of lethal drugs provided by a

doctor for this purpose. Assisted suicide has been a debate for centuries; even the idea

of Euthanasia has been around since before 500 BC-16th Century AD as found on

ProCon.org. One side states that it should not be legal for one to assist in suicide or for

an individual to inflict it upon themselves no matter the circumstance. The other side

argues that it should be a persons right to terminate their life when life is inevitably

going to end anyway, and they are potentially in continuous agonizing pain too. In the

following essay I will present both sides separately for my readers from information that

I have gathered in the sources below.

As most people already know, Physician Assisted Suicide is illegal in almost

every one of the United States. The subject has continuously been seen by people as

being against certain religions, and immoral among many other things. As stated in

Assisted Suicide: The Philosophers Brief, paragraph 3, It defines a very general oral

and constitutional principle - that every competent person has the right to make

momentous personal decisions Second, it recognizes that people may make such

momentous decisions impulsively or out of emotional depression, when their act does

not reflect enduring convictions States may be allowed to prevent suicide by people

who-it is plausible to think-would later be grateful if they were prevented from dying.
Most people deny the idea of P.A.S. because they are afraid of regulations not being

used correctly as stated in the same previously stated article. For example the state

doesnt want to give someone a lethal dose of drugs when they are not actually ill and

just think they might die, or not in their right mind. They may also think that people

would be pressured into assisted deaths by medical professionals. An example of this

may happen because the hospital has a shortage of rooms or necessary equipment to

take care of an individual so instead they subtly (or possibly not so subtly) will hint at

them to take the lethal dosage. Because of just that one possibility, if they were to take

P.A.S. into consideration in more states than they would also have to consider all of the

new restrictions that need to be put on any kind of medical professional. There are too

many variables that people think could go wrong, and they dont want to end a persons

life if they can potentially live even another year. In addition to this, it is against many

major religions to end life as stated in an article called Major Religions Oppose Assisted

Suicide for example, ...only God should be able to end life, and, Preserving life is the

most important aspect in Judaism. Just its religious ties could cause someone to

disagree with P.A.S.

Despite there being more states that illegalized Physician Assisted Suicide many

people are actually coming around to the idea, and more people are starting to agree to

make it legal. Many people agree that if it is in the right conditions then people should

have that right, and it can potentially not only be less painful on the ill individual but

those around them as well. This is shown in the report How does physician-assisted

suicide affect the family? when it states, Doctors interviewed family members around a
year after a physician-assisted death, by lethal prescription. They found 11 in 100 had

some form of depression, and 2 in 100 still had symptoms of grief People whose

family member had opted for physician-assisted death felt more prepared for and

accepting of the death. In addition, if there has been anything majorly wrong in any of

the states that have allowed P.A.S. I was unable to find anything about it. In fact I found

an article named Assisted Suicide: How One Woman Chose to Die, Then Survived and

it states, I didnt want to live, Hall said. I was just going to say, give me the

barbiturates and call it good. For weeks, Stevens resisted giving Hall the lethal dose

of drugs, hoping he could convince her to change her mind. There is so many worries

that have been expressed about how medical professionals may abuse their power, but

there this is actual proof of the opposite. This doctor could have easily given up just like

Mrs. Hall, but instead he kept trying to convince her to save her life instead.

The controversy of physician assisted suicide is a very hard issue to address for

multiple reasons. The people on both sides of the topic have very good reasons for

opposing or applying P.A.S. to their states, but according to ProCon.org as you go

throughout all the years you can see it becoming more and more popular among the

masses. Perhaps it will still stay widely illegal in the states, or it will continue to slowly

become legal. Those who dislike the idea have very real reasons to in most cases

because it is definitely possible for someone to abuse the power of a lethal dose. Those

who like the idea believe they should be able to control their fate before it controls them.

In either instance it is always important for everyone to express their emotions on such
issues, but I encourage everyone to look at the facts as well to decide which side they

may want to take on such subjects.

 Sources:

- ProCon.org

https://euthanasia.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=000022

- Assisted dying:the ongoing debate

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1997/03/27/assisted-suicide-the-philosophers-br

ief/

- Assisted Suicide: The Philosophers Brief

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2585714/

- How does physician-assisted suicide affect the family?

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2009/10/how-does-physician-assisted

-suicide-affect-the-family/index.htm

- Major religions oppose assisted suicide

http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/05/14/51609/major-religions-oppose-assisted-sui

cide/

- Assisted Suicide: How One Woman Chose to Die, Then Survived

http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/18/assisted-suicide-how-one-woman-chose-to-die-then-s

urvived/