Persuasive Essay On Assisted Suicide - 1225 Words (2023)

opinion

analytical

explanatory

Assisted suicide has been a controversial topic for many decades. Today’s society brings up many realistic and ethical questions such as; who owns our lives? Should ending suffering be the highest priority? Who should be allowed to make the decision to end a person’s life when they are unresponsive or incompetent of making decisions? Should suicide be an option? Every answer may vary depending on whom you ask because they are only opinions. The purpose of documents such as the bill of rights and the Constitution were created to give people rights as well as freedoms, but does it include the right to choose when one’s life ends? The legalization of assisted suicide is another right person should have so they have the freedom to make their own choice when facing death. Assisted suicide should become a legal option for those suffering.

Having the title of a physician holds a great deal of weight, and many obligations. One of doctor 's most important duties is to accommodate his or her patients to the fullest making him or her as comfortable as possible while trying to alleviate all pain in a timely fashion. In certain situations(mostly in the elderly and terminally ill) a doctor is not able to eliminate all pain forcing the patient to live out the last moments of his or her life in agony and misery. Unfortunately, from time to time an individual’s last option should he or she wish to die peacefully would be death. Although assisted suicide seems like a situation where far more problems are created rather than solutions(which is why many encourage assisted suicide to remain

Death is a natural part of life that is inevitable, and sadly no one can escape it. Sometimes people are faced with a terminal illness that shortens their life, so they decide to take the matters into their own hand and end their life early. This is known as assisted suicide; which should be legal for someone diagnosed with a terminal illness because it is a human right decision, a safeguard to the patient, and reduces the financial burden placed on the family.

Every human who suffers from such diseases should have the right to leave this world peacefully and to die with dignity. Prisoners even have a right for their last wish, so it is our duty to fulfill the last wish of sick patients. Besides, if the patient’s will is rejected, he or she might try to commit the suicide.So many times they are enticed to do such a great harm to themselves . Very often this is the only way to relieve the pain away from patients. Euthanasia not only helps the terminally ill patients, but also their loved ones.“Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide will shorten the period of pre-mortem suffering and eliminate fear about how and when death will occur. The patient will have a measure of control over the process of dying” (Singer,

With the discussion of assisted suicide being a viral topic, there are many different opinions whether or not people are for or against it. As for me, I am against assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is currently legal in five states including Oregon, Vermont, Washington, California, and Montana. Methods in the way it is done may vary from state to state, but I still believe any type of assisted suicide is wrong. In the article “Always Care, Never Kill: How Physician-Assisted Suicide Endangers the Weak, Corrupts Medicine, Compromises the Family, and Violates Human Dignity and Equality,” it states that allowing physician-assisted suicide would be a big mistake for the four following reasons: “first, it would endanger the weak and vulnerable.

Jerry Fensterman, in his essay "I See Why Others Choose to Die", talks about how he can understand why terminal ill people after so long in pain with no hope to cure choose to end their life sooner than expected. Fensterman, who was a dignose with cancer, says "I know now how a feeling, loving, rational person could choose death over life, could choose to relieve his suffering as well as that of his loved ones a few months earlier that would happen naturally." I agreed with the writers point of view, and I can also understand why someone would make this type of decisions. It is not only physically devastating for the whole family to go through this type of situations, but it could also be economically damaging, and not to mention the stress that is slowly draining everyone around.

As a final point, it is not of good conscience to ask another person especially a loved one to suffer excessively, when they are near death without any hope of recuperating or have any quality of life. A person can never get a feel in how exactly is another person’s pain since everyone deals with pain distinctively. I believe that Physician Assisted Death or Physician Assisted Suicide should be legalized but used as a last resort and with strictly qualifications and mentally competent, to help patients with terminal illness to not live the last days of their lives in excruciating pain. The nature of death is part of humanity. “I do not fear death. I had been for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience for It.” –Mark Twain

Imagine being told you only had so long to live and that you wouldn’t be able to do anything for yourself due to the amount of pain you're in. Imagine all of your family remembering you as weak and sick instead of how you lived the rest of your life, now imagine you can do something about that. This is the choice so many people in Oregon are glad to have, the choice to end their life with doctor assisted suicide when faced with a terminal illness. Steve Mason received assisted suicide after being told he only had six months to live, he says he wanted control over his death as much as his life, he will choose when and where it happens he says "I lived my life with dignity, I want to go out the same way." Assisted suicide is when a doctor prescribes a lethal prescription knowing that the patient plans to use them to commit suicide, this does not include refusing a ventilator or other life saving measures. Everyone should have a right to control their own life, so with certain provisions i believe everyone should be given the right to doctor assisted suicide when they face a disease that will be terminal guaranteeing they have no pain, and can choose where and when they pass.

Physician assisted suicide or euthanasia should be a right granted to all citizens who are suffering from a degenerative, painful, or fatal condition that would cause them to be unable to enjoy their lives as healthy people do. Although there are certainly several debates against this viewpoint on assisted suicide, it is not up to ethicists to make decisions that infringe upon the rights of the ill and infirm. As it stands, there is a solid argument in favor of human euthanasia or physician assisted suicide. Patients have a right to make their own decisions to preserve free choice and human dignity. This right includes the right to choose assisted suicide. Having access to physician-assisted suicide allows the patient to maintain control over his or her situation and to end life in an ethical and merciful manner.

I feel that assisted suicide is a practice that should not only be legally acceptable, but socially acceptable as well. No one should be forced to live a life of pain and suffering. After all, aren't we all guaranteed the rights of life, liberty, and happiness? If happiness means freedom from pain and suffering, then assisted suicide should be legalized. A person willing to help sick people end their suffering should be praised rather than condemned. Some terminally ill patients are forced to face imaginable pain and suffering on a day-to-day basis. This intolerable pain causes these people to experience an unbearably poor quality of life. Yet, if you help these patients end their life, you will probably end up in jail. I feel that being forced to live in intolerable conditions is the real crime. People such as Dr. Kevorkian should not be punished for doing a good deed. He should in fact be praised for heeling the pain of a dying person. Having to live a life where every passing minute is dreaded is something that no person should have to experience. Money is a big issue to everyone whether they admit or not. Should a person and their family be forced to spend thousands of dollars a day on medical expenses just so the patient can continue living a life he doesn't even want to keep? This medical treatment, in some instances, can only extend a life by mere weeks. In theory, this treatment is just adding on more weeks of pain and suffering. Not only does the patient have to suffer, but the family members have to suffer watching their loved ones live in agony. Furthermore, these medical expenses are probably covered by government medical aid. If this money is being spent on someone who doesn't even want the help, wouldn't it make more sense to spend the money on people who desperately need it? This money could be better spent on saving people's lives that actually want to live. Cancer patients could be allotted more money to pay for their chemotherapy. Aids patients would be able to earn federal assistance in purchasing their desperately needed medication. The extra money could also be used to improve the quality of peoples' lives who are forced to live in unpleasant conditions. For example, burn victims could earn extra money to help pay for their reconstructive surgery.