Assisted Suicide Research Paper

Assisted Suicide

Jiahao Guo
TSS Class
Guy Steward
3rd September 2014

Contents
Introduction 3
Legalised countries 4
Terri’s story 5
Reasons of opposing 6
Supportive organizations 7
Conclusion 8

Introduction
Assisted suicide, in another word, is ‘medical assistance at the end of life’ (Asch, 1997) which starts on Switzerland. It is said that only the patient who has been diagnosed with an incurable illness can ask for the process. To start with, doctors have to identify if the patient is qualified for assisted suicide and prescribe for the lethal drugs which will be used in the process. However, doctors are not the persons who execute it but a physician.

People often confuse assisted suicide with euthanasia.
In fact, they are different. The former is required by patient and the drugs that used in the process are also self-administered by patient themselves while the latter is all doctor instructed.
Legalised countries
Switzerland
According to foreign news announce on China Daily ‘Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland provided the helper doesn 't personally benefit from a patient 's death.’(Helen, 2010) Doctors will provide the patient with advice and lethal drugs. However, it could only be used on patient who has terminally illness.

United State
There are six states currently legitimize assisted suicide which are Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, and New Mexico(2014).
Netherland
Although it is illegal to assisted suicide in Netherland, but it is well accepted among society.

In the places where assisted suicide is legalised, the most people that request for it are women, the poor and the ethnic group, because they regard themselves as ‘on the hip of the society’.(Yanyan, 2006)
Terri’s story
Terri Schiavo got her brain injured result from her previous heart disease in 1990 which made her into persistent vegetative state. She had to extend her lifespan via special mechanisms.

Terri’s husband said that once she told him that she would rather just die than lay on the bed do nothing. But her parent insisted that the more time she would be alive the more chance she could recovery. For this case, her husband and her parent argued for years, the court of state support the idea of assisted suicide, yet the Supreme Judicial Court continuously rejected to deal with it.

Finally, Terri’s feeding equipment was removed anyway after approved by one judge. After 13 days without food and drinks supply, Terri was dead. Terri’s death leads a heat of arguments about whether euthanasia is a murder or a mercy behaviour which involves views of ethics and
religious Reasons of opposing
Families
Licensing assisted suicide is too much for terminally ill people to take.
It is, on some level, a kind of discrimination. It also can be very unsafe for the patients, due to some people want to inherit or be rid of a care burden by doing this.
Religious ethnics
It is said in Gospel of Matthew that life is a gift from god, people cannot just abandon it. People who do so should be punished. Such behaviour violate the regularity of the world, as well as the nature order.(Gospel of Matthew, 2014)
Medical ethnics
Assisted suicide against the Hippocratic tradition (a revision of the Hippocratic Oath) which the core prohibits the killing of human being, just as it forbids any aid in suicide: 'To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death. '(The Hippocratic tradition, 1979)
According to Josef Kure, “Euthanasia as a direct killing of the patient, regardless if upon his/her request or without any request, is not forbidden by the Hippocratic Oath directly. But such a prohibition can be deduced, a fortiori, from the prohibition of any help in suicide. So euthanasia as the killing of a patient by the physician is not in accordance with either the Hippocratic Oath or the spirit of the Hippocratic tradition.”(Kure,
2011)
Supportive organizations
Church of Euthanasia
A political organization set up in USA which slogan is "devoted to restoring balance between humans and the remaining species on earth". They support suicide, abortion, cannibalism (only eat the people that already dead), and sodomy (anal or oral sexual behaviour between two people or sexual activity between one person and a non-human animal). There are certain instructions for people to commit suicide, but was threatened to remove after forced by law.
Dignitas
A Swiss organization that provides patient that has a terminal illness with advice and lethal drugs. In fact, they also operate this on the mental ill patients. For example the retired British art teacher who killed herself on 27 March 2014 “in part because she had become fed up with the modern world of emails, TVs, computers and supermarket ready meals.”(The Independent, 2014)

Conclusion

For patients who have terminally illness, despite knowing how hard it would be to let a friend or a family member die. They perceive the love. However, standing on their feet to consider their uncomfortable and pain. If in part death is the only way they can get released. Then it is our obligation to help them to feel better to go rather than being tortured by the illness until they could not bear more pain. Therefore, I suggest that assisted suicide should be made legal.
Bibliography
Website
‘Assisted Suicide’ (Retrieved December 22th 2006) http://www.xlzx.com/Article/ZISHAYUFEIJIGANYU/1865.htm ‘how does Christian think about suicide’(Retrieved October 2008) http://www.gotquestions.org/Chinese/Chinese-Suicide-Bible.html

Newspaper article
Paul, Baroness Finally Explains Why We Should Not Legalise Assisted Suicide, Daily Post, March 2012 http://www.questia.com/article/1G1-284276453/baroness-finlay-explains-why-we-should-not-legalise Adam Withnall, Retired British art teacher ends life at Dignitas ‘because she couldn’t adapt to modern world’, The Independent, September 2014 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/retired-british-art-teacher-ends-life-at-dignitas-because-she-couldnt-adapt-to-modern-world-9242053.html Helen Chan, Assisted Suicide, China Daily, September 2010 http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/language_tips/news/2010-09/20/content_11329569.htm Books
Wesley D. Smith, The Hippocratic tradition, Cornell University Press, Michigan 1979
http://euthanasia.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000198