For or Against Assisted Suicide

Assisted suicide alternatively referred to as physician assisted suicide is the act of providing a patient with a fast and painless method of ending their life upon the patient’s request. The method has been employed in cased of terminally ill patients. The call for legalization of physician assisted suicide has been on the rise through the formation of organizations such as Americans against Human Suffering, the Society for the Right to Die, and the Hemlock Society. This paper proposes the legalization of physician assisted suicide.

According to research, over 57 % of all doctors have received a request for physician assisted suicide in one way or another (Back, Wallace, Starks & Pearlman, 1996). This implies that there exist a large number of patients who often have the will to take their life but lack the means to do it. With the legalization of physician assisted suicide, will come relief for all those patients.

Every patient should be given a right to choose when they die. Just is the case for the right to life, a patient should have a right to choose their time and manner of death. This way, patients are able to determine the point beyond which they cannot sustain pain.

It is only jus to treat like cases alike. Some terminally ill patients are capable of taking their lives by simply refusing to take the medication allocated to them. These include patients who are on respirators and those who are dialysis. For others, death would take much longer and would come with a lot of suffering if they refused to take their treatment. Offering the option of physician assisted suicide treats both groups of patients equitably as the only death hastening option.

While physicians can assist in completely eliminating pain, it is not so with suffering. Suffering comprises other social, psychological, existential and physical burdens that patients feel jeopardize their dignity (Cohen, Fihn, Boyko, Jonsen & Wood, 1994). These include loss of sense of self, loss of independence and loss of functional capacities. Alleviating such forms of suffering would be difficult for physicians. The legalization of physician assisted suicide introduces a compassionate option of ending such forms of pain.

It is the interest of the state to preserve life. The state’s interest, however, lessens when a patient is terminally ill and is strongly inclined to ending his life (Van der Maas et al., 1996). Completely prohibiting physician assisted suicide amounts to excessive limitation of personal liberties. Physician assisted suicide should be legalized for cases of terminally ill patients.

Terminally ill patients are a threat to the stability of their families. If such patients continue to get support for their treatment, they are likely to deplete the fortunes of their families (Emanuel, Daniels, Fairclough & Clarridge, 1996). On the other hand, such patients may need a lot of state resources to keep alive while awaiting their death. If legalized, physician assisted suicide would largely reduce the amount of funding that the state puts into hopeless cases. Such funding could instead be put into other activities such as research into chronic diseases thereby lowering the need for physician assisted suicide in the long run.

Physician assisted suicide is not a violation of any one person’s right. Instead, it often promotes the best interest of everyone concerned (Emanuel, Fairclough & Emanuel, 2000). According to the Libertarian argument, such an action is morally acceptable. Legalization of physician assisted suicide would allow for people to be able to participate in what is morally right. However, this rule is only applicable in some situations and should be practiced as such.

Finally, physician assisted suicide occurs in all regions albeit in secret. Legalizing it would bring about honesty and transparency (Emanuel, Fairclough & Emanuel, 2000). The fact that physician assisted suicide is prohibited in most states disallows open discussion between physicians and patients in public discourse. Legalization of physician assisted suicide would provide for better care of patients during the last moments of patients’ lives as all parties would try to address the concerns and options of the practice.

On the other hand, there exist secular and religious orientations that cite the sanctity of life. These beliefs form a ground for the prohibition of physician assisted suicide (Quill, Lo & Brock, 1997). According to them, it is morally improper to end life as it violates the sanctity of life. They are of the opinion that violating the sanctity of life is equivalent to acting God, the giver and taker of life. In response to this, it would be considered improper to use the religious or secular beliefs of a part of the population to create laws that affect the entire population.

Legalizing physician assisted suicide undermines the commitment of the medical profession to save lives (Materstvedt et al., 2003). The principle of the medical profession is to save lives. Adoption of physician assisted suicide directly violates this principle. In essence, they would be promoting the contrary of what they should promote.

Legalization physician assisted suicide could lead to the abuse of the practice. While the practice would only provide a means for the patient to end their lives, patients could be exposed to excessive pressure to end their lives (Quill, Lo & Brock, 1997).  Pressure could be mounted in the form of directly convincing the patient or withholding necessary medication to raise the levels of suffering and the need to carry out the final act. With such possibilities, it would be improper to legalize physician assisted suicide.

Today’s palliative care is sufficient to alleviate the need for physician assisted suicide. With advancing technology and knowledge, physicians have a higher capability to alleviate pain and suffering (Meier et al., 1998). Palliative care involves the care of both the dying patient and their family. It is employed chiefly for patients whose cure is impossible. Palliative care is not intended to hasten or postpone death; instead, it only promotes death as a normal life process and alleviates suffering in the meantime.

With all these arguments, it is possible to make a choice as to whether or not physician assisted suicide is justifiable. The strongest arguments against euthanasia are that human life is invaluable and that we should not interfere in the ending of life as it is God’s business (Quill, Cassel & Meier, 2013). Other reasons why death is seen as a bad thing include the fact that most people do not want to die and that death violates autonomy drastically. The first two arguments are not held by all individuals. They should therefore not be applied across the board. The last two are not absolute. People do not want to die because they have things they want to do or experiences they look forward to. For a patient who is in intense suffering and looks forward to death, this rule does not apply. Death is a violation of autonomy in that it provides for the death of those who do not want to die. For those who want to die, the objection is invalid.

In conclusion, physician assisted suicide is supported and opposed by many individuals alike. Those patients who are in extreme suffering often want to be allowed or be provided with means to end their own lives. Regardless of the objections, it is only reasonable that such care should be put in the caring hands of physicians. Legalization would also provide for the regulation of the practice hence eliminating most of the reasons of opposing the practice such as abuse of the practice (Quill, Cassel & Meier, 2013). It would also provide equitability as some people are better able to bring about their own deaths.

References

Back, A., Wallace, J., Starks, H., & Pearlman, R. (1996). Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in Washington State: patient requests and physician responses. Jama, 275(12), 919–925.

Cohen, J., Fihn, S., Boyko, E., Jonsen, A., & Wood, R. (1994). Attitudes toward assisted suicide and euthanasia among physicians in Washington State. New England Journal Of Medicine, 331(2), 89–94.

Emanuel, E., Fairclough, D., & Emanuel, L. (2000). Attitudes and desires related to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide among terminally ill patients and their caregivers. Jama, 284(19), 2460–2468.

Emanuel, E., Daniels, E., Fairclough, D., & Clarridge, B. (1996). Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: attitudes and experiences of oncology patients, oncologists, and the public. The Lancet, 347(9018), 1805–1810.

Materstvedt, L., Clark, D., Ellershaw, J., Forde, R., Gravgaard, A., & Muller-Busch, H. et al. (2003). Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: a view from an EAPC Ethics Task Force. Palliative Medicine, 17(2), 97–101.

Meier, D., Emmons, C., Wallenstein, S., Quill, T., Morrison, R., & Cassel, C. (1998). A national survey of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in the United States. New England Journal Of Medicine, 338(17), 1193–1201.

Quill, T., Cassel, C., & Meier, D. (2013). Proposed clinical criteria for physician-assisted suicide. Medicine Unbound: The Human Body And The Limits Of Medical Intervention: Emerging Issues In Biomedical Policy Volume 3, 3, 188.

Quill, T., Lo, B., & Brock, D. (1997). Palliative options of last resort: a comparison of voluntarily stopping eating and drinking, terminal sedation, physician-assisted suicide, and voluntary active euthanasia. Jama, 278(23), 2099–2104.

Van der Maas, P., Van Der Wal, G., Haverkate, I., De Graaff, C., Kester, J., & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, B. et al. (1996). Euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and other medical practices involving the end of life in the Netherlands, 1990–1995. New England Journal Of Medicine, 335(22), 1699–1705.