Physician Assisted Suicide The Voluntary Termination Of...

Gaines 1 Hayley Gaines Professor Johnson College Composition 2 13 April 2015 The Right to Die Physician assisted suicide has been practiced over the past couple centuries and is beginning to spark the interest in many people who suffer from terminal diseases. Physician assisted suicide is the voluntary termination of one s own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician (Physician-assisted Suicide). Starting in the early 1800 s, physicians did all they could to save the lives of their patients which included copious bloodletting and huge doses of poisonous drugs to induce vomiting and defecating with no regulation (Weir 34). Many of these patients that were treated†¦show more content†¦People base euthanasia and physician assisted suicide on a moral and legal stand point. A health care physicians obligation is to provide support to their patients and to the families throughout treatment and death. Autonomous individuals should be free to decide their own fate when an important life choice conce rns a private matter, and when the individual making that choice is near death and suffering without relief, then the state should not interfere unless it can prove that interference is necessary to protect vulnerable third parties (Schafer). People should have the right to request that their life be terminated through medical methods. One of the largest arguments made about physician assisted suicide is it is morally wrong. Supporters of the right-to-die movement, argue that just as courts have found that there is a constitutional right to refuse medical treatment, there is a similar right to ask for medical assistance in dying. When patients reach a point where illness, pain, suffering, and lack of freedom have essentially destroyed their quality of life, supporters contend, they should have the ability to end their lives legally and in a dignified manner. The government, supporters argue, has no right to interfere in this choice ( The Right to Die ). Assisted suicide proponents a rgue that it is like abortion, it is a choice issue because doctors have enough knowledge to know when a patient is close to dying. Accredited