Benefits of Physician Assisted Suicide

Benefits of Physician Assisted Suicide In the United States and countries all over the world, the topic of assisted suicide or euthanasia has become highly controversial because it is hard for people determine if it is moral or not. This became more known and debated about in the public eye in the early ninety’s by the actions of Doctor Jack Kevorkian. He assisted in the deaths of over 130 terminally ill patients all while being in the public spotlight. Assisted suicide is defined as the process by which an individual, who may otherwise be incapable, is provided with the means (drugs or equipment) to commit suicide. In some cases, the terms “aid in dying” or “death in dignity” are preferred. Many patients that are terminally ill have to suffer serious and unbearable pain day in and day out and can do nothing but try and tame the pain until their time is up. Everybody who lives wants to live their life with dignity, and in turn die with dignity. This is being prevented by prolonging the pain and suffering of the patient’s life. It should be the decision of the person whose life it is to determine whether or not they are still actually living with dignity and choose if they want to continue to suffer, affecting not only them but they’re families as well. There are only three states in the U.S. in which assisted suicide is legal, and they have a very rigid guideline to determine who qualifies as terminally ill. The first state to pass a pro euthanasia law was Oregon, followed by Washington and Montana. I believe more states should adopt similar laws because it allows patients who truly desire to end their life in dignity to do so, along with preventing patients that aren’t terminally ill and don’t fit the strict requirements from engaging in physician assisted suicide. The right to die is a fundamental freedom of all people and so is the right to end suffering, which is why it should be legalized and not frowned upon in the eyes of society. Supporters of the legalization of assisted suicide are mainly responding to the amount of suffering that these terminally ill patients go through nearing the end of their life. The current health care system, with the exception of Oregon, Washington, and Montana, leaves these patients in terrible agony and makes them suffer unreasonably and unnecessarily at the end of life. Even with good care toward the end, patients will suffer from avoidable pain and other harsh symptoms creating a very poor quality of life and diminishing their ability to die in dignity. (Guo 2). With assisted suicide as an option for these patients, they have the right to make life and death decisions, which should be a fundamental and individual right of all humans. It also allows them to end their life in a painless and happy death. (Guo 3). Most patients that are terminally ill are hooked up to machines and artificial equipment to keep them alive and people have to wonder at what point these people are even still living. There is a huge difference between being alive and living. Living is defined as the means of maintain life and livelihood and most of these patients are simply kept alive on complex machines in which they stay in bed all day and don’t even have the strength to move themselves. Even though these people are technically alive, they have no livelihood and are not truly living. Quality of life has seemingly become much less important as medicine has improved over the years, because people will do anything do keep their loved ones alive when in reality they are suffering great amounts and the quality of life is so poor that these patients are not truly living. All people truly do want to die with dignity and have a good quality of life towards the end, and without the possibility of active euthanasia, people are having very drawn out lives in agonizing pain resulting in a death with very little dignity. It is the right of the individual to decide if there is no quality of life left and if ending their constant suffering is necessary.
In the United States, the first state to pass a pro assisted suicide law was Oregon, commonly known as the Oregon Act or the Death with Dignity Act (DWDA). This law is an effective law because there are many conditions to it to ensure the prevention of abuse of this practice along with protecting the value of human life. It requires the patient to give a fully informed, voluntary decision, applies only to the last six months of the patient’s life, and makes it mandatory for a second opinion by a qualified physician to be given that the patient has fewer than six months to live. It also requires two oral requests, one written request, and allows cancellation of the request at any time. It is also mandatory that a 15-day waiting period occurs after the first oral request and makes it mandatory that 48 hours (2 days) elapse after the patient makes a written request to receive the medication. This act punishes anyone who uses coercion on a patient to use the Act, excludes nonresidents of Oregon from taking part, mandates participating physicians are licensed in Oregon, mandates Health Division Review, and does not authorize mercy killing or active euthanasia. (Lachman 2). Because the guidelines of this law are so stringent, it makes this process much more moral than when one thinks about it generally. Instead of allowing any sick elderly person to end things, it requires that the person be truly suffering a great amount and have very little time left. People that are against the legalization of active euthanasia say that it could open the flood gates to non-critical patient suicides, and insurance companies may put large amounts of pressure on doctors to recommend the assisted suicide procedure. This argument is simply false because of the structure of the Oregon Act. The patient has to be the one to suggest this action to the doctor and the doctor cannot in any way try to influence the idea of euthanasia to any patient at any time. (Volker4) Also, non-critical patients would not qualify or be allowed to be selected as a patient for assisted suicide. (Volker5) Although it may seem like an immoral practice to some, the way that this law is structured makes it quite humane and doesn’t allow this to happen to someone with a lot of life to live. Pro assisted suicide laws should be spread throughout the country but only under similar rules and regulations as the Death with Dignity Act to ensure that the patients truly need or deserve to end their suffering. Many people argue that the main reasons for trying to legalize euthanasia are because of the many medical benefits that result from this practice. Although it contradicts the death with dignity viewpoint it still proves how beneficial to society assisted suicide can be. Vital organs could be saved and salvaged allowing doctors to save the lives of other patients with more hope. Health care costs can be drastically reduced and nurse and doctors time would be freed up to work more with savable patients. Also, without physician assistance, people could potentially commit suicide in a messy and traumatic way. There has been a massive increase in the cost for health care over the years and in many cases it cost thousands of dollars to keep a dying patient alive. Medical costs for a terminally ill patient include things like x-rays, lab tests, drugs, medical staff salaries, etc. which will grow to cost a huge amount of money when the patient likely does not even want to be saved. (Yang4). Also, these medical expenses eat away at the patient’s funds and belongings like their estate, leaving them with very little to leave with their families and grandchildren. (Yang6). The amount of money it costs to keep a suffering patient alive is ridiculous and unreasonable, especially when that patient does not want to continue living. Also, America is facing a critical shortage of medical staff and things are going to get much worse as the baby boom generation becomes older and life span increases. (Yang). The use of medical staff time could be used in much more effective ways than attending to dying patients with little desire to live, many more lives could be saved with the increased time doctors have to treat savable patients. Even more people can be saved with the organs that can be saved from these dying patients. This country has massive waiting lists for hearts, kidneys, livers, and other organs that treatable patients need to live, any many patients that die waiting for these organs could survive if they receive them sooner. (Yang5). However, if these terminally ill patients continue to live and the diseases in their body continue to get worse, organs will weaken and cease to function altogether, the needs of the living need to be put ahead of the needs of the dying. (Yang5). The medical benefits of assisted suicide strongly outweigh the costs it takes to keep the dying patients alive. Even though the most important reason for legalizing physician assisted suicide is to allow terminally patients to end suffering and “die with dignity” the benefits from a medical standpoint further prove why this practice should be legalized. Assisted suicide shouldn’t be looked down on as a negative practice in the United States because it truthfully is a humane and beneficial to society. Why prolong a person’s suffering and continue to force them to live in agonizing pain when it is their fundamental right to decide how to live and die. The current laws in several states ensure that this practice doesn’t get abused in a negative way and has very strict guidelines to make sure of that. If other states around the country adopt the same law then there will only be positive results. Active euthanasia has many medical benefits as well because more time and money will be spent to provide for patient’s that have hope and the will to live. Although it is very controversial, assisted suicide is a good thing and has many benefits, mainly allowing the patient to end their life peacefully and happy, with dignity and a high quality of life.
Works Cited
Begley, AM. "Guilty but good: defending voluntary active euthanasia from a virtue perspective." Nursing Ethics 15.4 (2008): 434-445.
Guo, F. "A concept analysis of voluntary active euthanasia." Nursing Forum 41.4 (2006): 167-171. CINAHL Plus with Full Text.
Lachman, VD. "Physician-assisted suicide: compassionate liberation or murder?." MEDSURG Nursing 19.2 (2010): 121-125. CINAHL Plus with Full Text.
Volker, DL. "The Oregon experience with assisted suicide." Journal of Nursing Law 11.3 (2007): 152-162. CINAHL Plus with Full Text
Yang, Bijou, and David Lester. "Recalculating the Economic Cost of Suicide." Death Studies 31.4 (2007): 351-361. ERIC.