Should Physician Assisted Suicide Be Legalized?

Should Physician Assisted Suicide be Legalized? Imagine how you would like to spend the end of your days. Do you imagine relaxing on a warm sandy beach? How about sitting at home reading your favorite novel. Spending your last days on this earth should be a peaceful, pain-free experience. Unfortunately, not all of us will have this option. People who are diagnosed with terminal diseases are not just sitting at home waiting to die. They are suffering. Without a say on when or how they would like to go, these poor souls are wasting away, ignored and forgotten. Everyday is like a nightmare without even the smallest hope of ever waking up. These terminally ill patients would love to be able to relax on a beach, and not have to worry about the pain. Sadly, this is not an option for them. They don 't even have the option to end the pain they are constantly going through. Isn’t it amazing that in America, The land of the free, citizens don 't have the right to end their own suffering? How can we justify putting our sick and disabled through such misery. Our patients should definitely have the right to choose. Physician assisted suicide should be legalized.
People have a right to how they want to live their own life. We grow up learning how to be responsible and how to make our own decisions. It is completely wrong for others to claim that they can make decisions for us better than we can make ourselves. It 's not fair for someone you 've never met to tell you how to live your life. How would you feel if there was someone out there controlling every move you made? Can a state official really understand from the patients point of view, and decide what 's best for them? Only someone who is actually going through and experiencing this situation for themselves can truly understand how it feels. Not everyone may want to choose an early end. Others might be able to cope with the pain. The important thing is that it should be up to the patient, not someone sitting in an office, to decide. Government officials and politicians should not be involved in personal matters such as this. You 've lived your whole life making your own decisions; you should be able to decide when to stop suffering.

Family members don 't want to see each other suffer. Nancy Niedzielski had to watch her husband die a long death in the year 2006. She said his happy demeanor changed to an angry and irritable one. “They don 't have a right to tell me how ling I have to suffer” said Niedzielski 's husband, Randy Niedzielski, before he died. While being interviewed, Nancy stated that her husband 's death was nothing like what he wanted. It was the definition of undignified. “I had to pick him up and change his diapers just like you would change a baby.” Nancy explains. “He didn 't want that. That isn 't dignified.” Today, Nancy along with many others who have lost their loved ones in this monstrous way are fighting for a change in the law. Petitions are being signed, and state officials are starting to recognize the great injustice of denying citizens their rights: the right to die with dignity, and without needless suffering. They are all choosing to fight for those who do not have their own freedom of choice.
People against allowing citizens of the United States to decide whether or not to end their suffering argue that the patients are actually being pressured by the physicians to end their lives. Most feel that patients suffering from illnesses should not have to worry about making painful decisions. Richard M. Doerflinger, associate director for policy development in the pro-life office of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, says that he fears “a right to die will soon become a duty to die.” He claims that doctors will try to get patients to take a lethal dose, just to take care of a problem in today 's expensive healthcare system. However, the physicians themselves have no say in the matter at all. Physicians do not suggest or encourage the ill to do anything. The Patient himself decides when and if he wants to end his own suffering. The only involvement that physicians do have, is supplying the medication used to accelerate death. Physicians don 't even inject the patients with the medicine. If a patient is ready to end his life, he will administer the dose himself, without any eyewitnesses. This makes the process completely unpressurized and dignified.

Rheba Tornyay, a widow who lost her husband to a prolonged illness, says that patients who are terminally ill should live out the rest of their days in peace and comfort, accompanied by a good caregiver. “We are doing a whole lot better with controlling pain and anxiety so that if people would just choose hospice care earlier than they do they really would have a whole lot easier time with this.” says Tornyay. Her idea of one spending their last days in peace, but this is not something that is easily attained. Not all patients are satisfied with pain medication and a nice view. That 's why they at least deserve a choice. “You don 't know how you 're going to feel at the end of your life -- none of us do. I can 't say sitting here today what I would choose, but I want to have the choices available to me.” says Nancy Niedzielski. None of us know for sure what it will be like in our final days. It is a complete mystery, and there is no way of telling whether or not you would consider accelerating death or not. In Oregon, the only state that has a similar law, fewer than 2 out of every 1,000 patients chose to take their life. This argument is not about being pro life or death, it 's about being pro choice.
Everyday, millions of patients are sitting and waiting. Waiting for the day when they can finally close their eyes and rest. These patients have been loyal citizens of the United States for their whole lives. Now they are lying on their deathbed. Don 't you think that they deserve the best? Especially for those patients who worked hard for their families, but are now no longer able to help. All they are allowed to do is watch as their loved one 's heart break, and try not to look miserable. While on the inside, they want to break down too. No one knows what it will be like until you get there yourself. You could be broken, tired, ready to move on, or you could be full of life and want to live to the fullest. Don 't you want to at least have the chance to think for yourself? We, as a country, are gaining nothing from these people 's needless suffering. And we, as human beings, should not be allowing this to happen to our neighbors. Legalizing physician assisted suicide is the only option we have. It is the right and most gracious decision we can make for ourselves.

Sometimes people are reluctant to approve new ideas because they don 't fully understand it. Physician assisted suicide is unlike any other. There aren’t any guns involved, or sharp objects. Patients are most definitely not jumping from rooftops or tying nooses around their necks. Some are scared to support physician assisted suicide because they think the patients suffer a painful death, but in fact it 's the opposite. Physician assisted suicide is the most humane way to go. All the patients are really doing is taking medicine. If the patient is ready to move on, then they will just take a high dose of pain medication. This will accelerate the death that was surely on its way. There aren 't any witnesses in the room while the patient does this, so they are completely unpressurized and are able to think twice about everything. In the end it is up to the patient. It 's nice to know that our loved ones wont be going through any immense pain if they decide to go early. It would be even better to know that they died with full confidence in their decision, and they left with the dignity and sanctity that they wanted.
Not Legalizing this specific kind of suicide goes against what The United States of America symbolizes: Freedom. We have soldiers fighting around the world to protect that freedom, but we deny it to some who need it the most? It is a patient 's Constitutional right to have an accelerated death if they choose. It is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. This prohibits the state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without due process. Liberty means: The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one 's way of life. There is a massive restriction being imposed on our ill, and it is immensely effecting their way of life. It is clear that our terminally ill patients are having their liberties taken from them. We cannot allow the United States Constitution to be ignored and pushed aside by people who believe physician assisted suicide is “morally wrong”. We cannot allow this to happen while there are people shedding their blood and sacrificing their lives to protect our rights.

Works Cited

Bender, David L. Suicide: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1992. Print.

"Editorials & Opinion | Death with Dignity: Approve I-1000 | Seattle Times Newspaper." The Seattle Times | Seattle Times Newspaper. The Seattle Times Company, 5 Oct. 2008. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. <http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2008229397_edit05death.html>.

Jenkins, Austin. "WA I-1000: Two Widows On Opposing Sides." OPB News. Oregon Public Broadcasting, 2 Oct. 2008. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. <http://news.opb.org/article/wa-i-1000-two-widows-opposing-sides-assisted-suicide/>.

Urofsky, Melvin I. Lethal Judgments: Assisted Suicide and American Law. Lawrence, Kan.: Univ. of Kansas, 2000. Print.

Cited: Bender, David L. Suicide: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1992. Print. "Editorials &amp; Opinion | Death with Dignity: Approve I-1000 | Seattle Times Newspaper." The Seattle Times | Seattle Times Newspaper. The Seattle Times Company, 5 Oct. 2008. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. &lt;http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2008229397_edit05death.html&gt;. Jenkins, Austin. "WA I-1000: Two Widows On Opposing Sides." OPB News. Oregon Public Broadcasting, 2 Oct. 2008. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. &lt;http://news.opb.org/article/wa-i-1000-two-widows-opposing-sides-assisted-suicide/&gt;. Urofsky, Melvin I. Lethal Judgments: Assisted Suicide and American Law. Lawrence, Kan.: Univ. of Kansas, 2000. Print.