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Comparative Essay On Assisted Suicide

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Comparative Essay On Assisted Suicide
Assisted Suicide: Comparative Essay

From the beginning of its existence, the sole purpose of the health care industry is to increase the quality of life. However, when a patient’s life is coming to an end, healthcare professionals strive to provide a comfortable death with minimal pain. With today’s doctors having new technology, medicines, and techniques, the ethics of assisted suicide has become a great debate between the public, the government, and health professionals. Dr. David Mayo and Daniel Callahan are both professionals in the healthcare industry and have varying viewpoints in regards to the effectiveness, position, and purpose of assisted suicide. The first point of debate is the effectiveness of assisted suicide. Currently, assisted suicide is legal and being used in only two states, Oregon and Washington but Mayo believes that more of the country should follow the example. David’s recently …show more content…
Through Mayo’s personal experience with losing his father, he argues that assisted suicide will provide another level of comfort of the patients. Mayo states that the drug has the ability to show compassion to patients in their time of great pain and essentially, allow them to die with their dignity. “As [assisted suicide] becomes more widely understood, I expect death with dignity to gain a wider acceptance” (Mayo). However, Callahan argues that with today’s pain reducing methods, patients are already shown this same compassion and are able to die with their dignity. Callahan brings the issue even further by stating that the assisted suicide drug goes against a doctor’s purpose, to help people live rather than die. “We now live longer than earlier generations, but there are ever more clever technological ways to prolong our dying, well beyond what we may desire….[however] a good doctor is one who balances the goal of saving life and seeking a patient’s peaceful death”
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