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Physician-Assisted Suicide and Legalization

This paper contends that physician-assisted suicide should be legalized. The issue of physician-assisted suicide pertains particularly to a group of people suffering from diseases that cause a severe deterioration of human powers and capacities. Some are suffering from intolerable pain, while others find their lives unbearable. In either case, medical technology has only sustained their lives, but not improve the quality of life for them. With the assistance of a physician, these people can gain control over the timing of their death and leave the world in a dignified fashion. Especially at a time when they are losing control over their existence, they can still exercise the personal choice of dying. Unlike the critics' image of rampant "murders" of unwanted and dying patients either by the physicians or family members, the legalization of physician-assisted suicide will occur within a set of strict and clearly formulated rules and guidelines. The ultimate decision to die belongs to the patients. However, the physicians involved plays an integral role in informing the patients of their options. In this paper, the Oregon Death with Dignity Act (DDA) passed in 1994 and the guidelines used by the Dutch courts will be used as examples for describing the criteria required for enforcing physician-assisted suicide.

For many dying patients, physician-assisted suicide provides them with personal choice. They want to exercise their rights to die and have the assistance of their physicians in the process (Shapiro, "Heated debate," 1994, p. 36). Ravaged by diseases beyond their control, these patients are empowered by the fact that they can still assert their own will in determining when and how their lives will end (McCord, 1993, p. 28). By enforcing their final wishes, they retain a shred of dignity by consciously and courageously embracing the moment of death (McCord, 1993, p. 28). In America, approximately 75% of all dying Americans die in...

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Physician-Assisted Suicide and Legalization. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:08, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1687731.html