Persuasive Essay On Assisted Suicide - 1955 Words (2023)

opinion

analytical

explanatory

comparative

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.

Imagine you are diagnosed as a terminally ill patient. It is pre-determined that you are going to die in a matter of 6 months, whether dementia is dehumanizing you day by day, or you’re physically being detained from leaving your hospice bed. Whether you would even opt for assisted suicide or not, wouldn’t you want to at least have the choice to peacefully end your life that has already been confirmed to end in a matter of months? You would not only have the option of when you would want to end your life, but how, and surrounded by the people you love. As an American, we are all given the right to say, believe, and act as we want—without harming others—due to the 1st amendment of the constitution. If assisted suicide is illegal, doesn’t that take away our very right to live the life we want? If one is in so much pain, and has been diagnosed as a terminally ill patient, and they want to end their life in a dignified manner surrounded by their loved ones, isn’t it only fair to give them that option?

The Right to Life Everyone born into this world inherits the fundamental right of life. However in the life that all humans have the right to, the freedom to choose death is arguably just as significant. In the last century, advancements in medical technology have made physician assisted suicide a prominent, easy, and highly controversial way to end a person’s life. Since a doctor can administer an euthanization to end a person’s life so easily, it’s ethics have been called into question. There must be certain conservative aspects of culture that humans must preserve and as such, euthanasia or physician assisted suicide should not be legalized in Canada.

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.

Regarding the physician’s position, a study conducted by Farr Curlin shows 69 percent of U.S. physicians are against physician assisted suicide (Curlin). In an article “Why Physicians Should Oppose Assisted Suicide” Tony Yang says “…with physician-assisted-suicide, the physician is to disregard what is perhaps the most universal moral injunction – do not kill…” Physicians are to sustain life and not end life. Yang uses the Brittany Maynard case, in which he views she feared possible pain and miserable incapacity. He views she ended her life long before it should have ended based on her self-determination and wish to avoid dependency. With respect to physician assisted-suicide, he views “the right to die” as irony for the alleged “right to have a physician help me kill myself.”

¨ If I cannot give my consent to my own death, whose body is this? Who owns my life?- Sue Rodriguez. If one cannot choose when they die and how they go out, then are we really the owner of our life and body? Physician assisted suicide is the practice of providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life. When the patient is terminally ill and is in a lot of pain they should be able to end their own life instead of waiting for it to end itself. Even though some argue that physician assisted suicide is not a humane way of dying it still stops the patient´s suffering and gives them peace of mind.

The ethical issues of physician-assisted suicide are both emotional and controversial, as it struggles with the issue of life and death. If you take a moment and imagine how you would choose to live your last day, it is almost guaranteed that it wouldn’t be a day spent lying in a hospital bed, suffering in pain, continuously being pumped with medicine, and living in a strangers’ body. Today we live in a culture that denies the terminally ill the right to maintain control over when and how to end their lives. Physicians-assisted suicide “is the voluntary termination of one's own life by the administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician” (Medical Definition of Physician-Assisted Suicide, 2017). Physician-assisted

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.

The end of life decisions is difficult for most people to manage on their own. Nurses are there to support the patient and to ensure that the patient is informed and educated on all options when it comes to their care. When you have a terminal illness it is challenging for individuals to cope with, let alone adding the option for assisted suicide. To be clear assisted suicide is defined as someone deliberately helping another person end their life upon their request (Radbruch, Leget, Bahr, Müller-Busch, Ellershaw, De Conno, & Vanden Berghe, 2016). Some states have passed legislation allowing the process to die by assisted suicide when facing a terminal illness (Evans, 2015 p.629). In today’s world, people are living longer and able to prolong life, even with a terminal illness, due to advances in medicine and pharmacology (Evans, 2015 p.629). When an individual gets to a certain point in their illness where no amount of medication or pharmacology is working and the patient quality of life has diminished, the patient should be able to make the decision to end