Physician Assisted Suicide Analysis
The Legalization of Physician Assisted Suicide
Of all the controversial topics to I could have chosen to discuss, the topic of physician assisted death is one that seems to be very taboo, even to date. Oregon is the only state to successfully pass a bill legalizing the practice; this bill is called the Death With Dignity Act (DWDA). Some may confuse physician-assisted death with euthanasia, yet they are two completely different acts. Euthanasia requires a physician, or other entity, to administer a deadly concoction; physician-assisted death is at the request of a terminally ill patient, the doctor provides a prescription of lethal medication which the patient takes of their own free will when they decide the time has come. The legalization …show more content…
The addition of just one more option to such a short list can do a lot to psychologically comfort a patient. In his essay “Physician-Assisted Death in the United States: Are the Existing Last Resorts Enough?” Timothy E. Quill outlines several aspects of physician-assisted death, specifically the fact that terminally ill patients need as many options as they can get. Terminally ill patients suffer a great deal; they know that eventually they will die. He states that there are “several ‘last resort’ options, including aggressive pain management, foregoing life-sustaining therapies, voluntarily stopping eating and drinking, and sedation to unconsciousness […]” (17-22). Some of the suggested last-resort methods seem to be no better than physician-assisted suicide. Take, for example, the method of voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED); for a patient, who is already suffering from the chronic pain of illness, is it fair to ask them to add the suffering of voluntary hunger and dehydration? Sedation to unconsciousness seems to be no better of a solution; the patient is put into a comatose state until they eventually die. This solution seems to ease the suffering of the patient, yet extend the suffering of the family. Aside from VSED and sedation, to forgo life-sustaining therapies seems to be no better. If a patient is currently undergoing palliative care to treat symptoms that are causing them to suffer, why stop the treatment and increase the suffering rather than end the suffering once and for all? Quill goes on to discuss the fact that the choices available to a terminally ill patient are so few that there should be no harm in adding just one more to the very short list. For example, Quill states that “some patients will need a way out, and arbitrarily withholding one important option from patients whose options are so limited seems unfair” (17-22).
Of all the controversial topics to I could have chosen to discuss, the topic of physician assisted death is one that seems to be very taboo, even to date. Oregon is the only state to successfully pass a bill legalizing the practice; this bill is called the Death With Dignity Act (DWDA). Some may confuse physician-assisted death with euthanasia, yet they are two completely different acts. Euthanasia requires a physician, or other entity, to administer a deadly concoction; physician-assisted death is at the request of a terminally ill patient, the doctor provides a prescription of lethal medication which the patient takes of their own free will when they decide the time has come. The legalization …show more content…
The addition of just one more option to such a short list can do a lot to psychologically comfort a patient. In his essay “Physician-Assisted Death in the United States: Are the Existing Last Resorts Enough?” Timothy E. Quill outlines several aspects of physician-assisted death, specifically the fact that terminally ill patients need as many options as they can get. Terminally ill patients suffer a great deal; they know that eventually they will die. He states that there are “several ‘last resort’ options, including aggressive pain management, foregoing life-sustaining therapies, voluntarily stopping eating and drinking, and sedation to unconsciousness […]” (17-22). Some of the suggested last-resort methods seem to be no better than physician-assisted suicide. Take, for example, the method of voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED); for a patient, who is already suffering from the chronic pain of illness, is it fair to ask them to add the suffering of voluntary hunger and dehydration? Sedation to unconsciousness seems to be no better of a solution; the patient is put into a comatose state until they eventually die. This solution seems to ease the suffering of the patient, yet extend the suffering of the family. Aside from VSED and sedation, to forgo life-sustaining therapies seems to be no better. If a patient is currently undergoing palliative care to treat symptoms that are causing them to suffer, why stop the treatment and increase the suffering rather than end the suffering once and for all? Quill goes on to discuss the fact that the choices available to a terminally ill patient are so few that there should be no harm in adding just one more to the very short list. For example, Quill states that “some patients will need a way out, and arbitrarily withholding one important option from patients whose options are so limited seems unfair” (17-22).