Why Is Physician Assisted Suicide Legal

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Physician-Assisted Suicide: Should physician assisted suicide is legal? PHI103 Informal Logic Angel Vasquez December 3, 2012 Physician-Assisted Suicide: Should physician assisted suicide be legal? The voluntary termination of one’s own life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician assisted suicide is the practice of providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with primary intention of ending his or her own life. I believe there are many things to consider about physician assisted suicide. “The history of law’s treatment of assisted suicide in this country has been and continues to be one of the rejections of nearly all efforts to permit…show more content…
Dr. Jack Kevorkian gained world attention by assisting in several suicides to dying patients; he was sentenced to over 60 years for his efforts, despite the gratitude of the patients and their families. Among the opponents are some physicians who believe it violates the fundamental tenet of medicine and believe that doctors should not assist in suicides because to do so is incompatible with the doctor’s role as a healer. It would violate doctors Hippocratic Oath, upon receiving a medical degree, each doctor is required to take a Hippocratic Oath, which states among other things, “first to do no harm.” ( Nitschke, 2001 ) Assisting in suicide would be a violation of that oath, and it would lead to a weaking of doctor’s patient’s trust. The oath was created in part so patients could be reassured that doctors only wanted to help them, not hurt them. A weaking of that oath may cause patients to wonder. We will all die. But in an age of increased longevity and medical advances, death can be suspended, sometimes indefinitely, and no longer slips in according to its own immutable timetable. For both patients and their loved ones, real decisions are demanded: when do we stop doing all that we can do? When do we withhold which therapies and allow nature to take its course? When are we, through our own indecision and fears of mortality, allowing wondrous medical methods to perversely prolong the…show more content…
It is difficult to see a loved one in such anguish for so long and when the patient does eventually dies, it is often sudden or it follows a period when the patient had lost consciousness. Vital organs can be saved, allowing doctors to save the lives of other patients who need them. There are long waiting lists for hearts, kidneys, livers, and other organs that are necessary to save the lives of people who can be saved. Patients can die with dignity rather than have the illness reduce them to shell f their former selves. Dying patients sometimes lose all ability to take care of themselves. Vomit, drool, urine, faces, and other indignities must be attended to by nursing assistants. Recent laws in Oregon and the U.K. have started a trend of legalization. But some most notably the U.S. Attorney General’s office, are determined to prevent the laws from going through with physician assisted suicide. Physician assisted suicide is killing one’s self by a patient facilitated by means a drug prescription or by information as an indication of what dosage provided by a physician aware of the patients intent. Over time the Hippocratic Oath has been modified on a number occasions as some of its tenets became less and less acceptable. References to women not studying medicine and doctors not breaking the skin have been deleted. The much quoted reference to do no harm is also in need of
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