Physician

Physician-assisted Suicide Essay Paper Word Count: 2558Introduction The history ofbegan to emerge since the ancient time. Historians and ancient philosophers especially had been debating over this issue. Thus, this issue is no longer new to us. However, it seems little vague because it has not yet been fully told. The historical story consists of patterns of thought, advocacy, and interpretation on whether to legalize assisted death. Only until June, 1999, the United States Supreme Court issued decisions in two cases that claimed constitutional protection for physician-assisted suicide, Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacoo v. Quill, by a single 9-0 vote covering the case (Bartin, Rhodes, Silver, 1). They also say that this decision mark the beginning of long period debate, which will not be fully resolved (1). Hence, the debate began by professionals from different aspects, especially the physicians themselves. I will never give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. A frequent quoted portion of the Hippocratic Oath, written in Greece sometimes during the fifth to forth centuries B.C.E, represented an effort by an apparently small group of physicians to build public respectability by distancing themselves from other physicians who commit assisted suicide. It has had considerable influence in the history of Western medical society and now, once again, physician-assisted suicide has become a major ethical issue in medicine, as well as an issue that involves law and public interests. Of the various issues at the medicine issue, perhaps none has drawn as much attention as assisted suicide. This topic is being discussed with great frequency in newspaper, journals and books about whether it is really necessary and ethical to physicians to participate in this life-ending act. Proponents or advocates of physician-assisted suicide argue that each perso n has freedom over their own life. Persons whose quality of life is nonexistent and who are having a terminal illness should have the right to decide to seek assistance. In contrast, opponents say that physician-assisted suicide is not an acceptable practice for the physicians legally as well as morally. This issue has become a central concern to the medical profession, legislators, philosophers, social psychologists, as well as the public. Interests in this controversial matter continue to grow increasingly whether it should be legalized. Perhaps everyone would have ones own thought and opinion. Nevertheless, assisted death is never a proper expression of compassion. It shows no care for the patients. Besides, it would be inhuman to assist other people to die. We should instead help the ill patient to recognize his self-worth and learn to cope with his problems, not to assist them in taking their lives. 1. Ethical Assessment Right to die or to live?Do people have the right to choose how to die? There is unquestionable growing support for permitting doctors to aid patients who wish to hasten their death. Physician-assisted suicide focuses the issue on the right of patients experiencing intolerably suffering to make free decision to end their lives. To propose physician-assisted suicide, Russell writes that many patients will go on suffering in great distress unless their lives are taken away (34). To them, everyone should have the right to request aid in dying if they find that their lives are no longer worth living. Other proponents argue that, in certain circumstances, it is morally permissible and ought to be legally permissible, for physicians to provide the knowledge by which a patient can take her own life (Dworkin, 3). Basically, the proponents consider two kinds of reasons for supporting this act. The first reason is that of freedom and the second has little to do with choic e, but instead, death is to be given if the patients will suffer forever. There are countless numbers of hopelessly ill or incapacitated people in hospitals, nursing home, homes for the aged, and institutions for the insane and mentally defective for whom life is nothing but a tragic burden. For those who have never visited such institutions, it is difficult to realize the human tragedy that exists there. No matter how much money is spent to improve their care and living conditions, many are doomed to utter despair year after year. Others equally incapable of any satisfaction in living wait in their homes longing for death, often at the cost of the health and happiness of the person who must care for them. (Russell, 36) American should think again before pressing ahead with the legalization of physician-assisted suicide (Emanuel, 73). Opponents feel that physician-assisted suicide is not an acceptable practice for physician as such action is illegal in most places around the world. Although we will face mortality one day, there is no guarantee that our own death will be of our liking. Opponents also argue that under no circumstance should physicians use their medical skills to aid a patients death. It is not within the power of medicine and probably never will be to master life and death and to control nature (Collahan, 85). Mary Rowlandson EssayI suggest that the question should be put this way: What is the best thing I could do to help my patients in whatever circumstances arising given my special knowledge and skills? In nearly every case the answer would be to heal, to prolong life, to reduce suffering, to restore health and physical well being, i.e. to preserve and enhance life. But in some extremes, hopeless circumstances, the best service a physician can render may be to help a person hasten death in order to relieve intolerable, unnecessary suffering that makes life unbearable as judged by the patient. This would be enlargement of the physicians role, not a contradiction of it (Cauthen). Sometimes ending suffering takes priority over extending life. When death becomes preferable to life, everyone would benefit if it were legal to show mercy (Euthanasia). One of the greatest assistants to the euthanasia movement was Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Dr. Kevorkian assisted over 100 people and even made a machine to do so. In 1986, Dr. Kevorkian discovered that some doctors in the Netherlands were helping their patients who were terminally ill, or who were suffering unbearable amounts of pain and suffering to die. This news caused him to take an interest in dying patients and to get him involved in a campaign to legitimize physician assisted suicide. In 1989, Dr. Kevorkian learned about a man with quadriplegia, paralysis of the arms and legs, who had made a public announcement for help to end his life (Kevorkian 2). Dr. Kevorkian then attempted to invent a device that people who were too incapacitated to end their own lives by other means could by simply pushing a button. He eventually made a device he called the Thanatron, Greek for Death Machine, which administered an anesthetic and then a lethal injection of potassium chloride through an intraveno us line. Potassium chloride causes the heart to stop beating and is the substance used in executions by lethal injection. Dr. Kevorkian gained publicity through media coverage of his device. In 1989, Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old woman with Alzheimers disease, contacted Dr, Kevorkian and requested assistance (Kevorkian 2). In 1990, Adkins became the first person to die using the Thanatron in Kevorkians presence. Dr. Kevorkian asked his own patients to donate their vital organs or undergo a critical medical experiment to benefit science, medicine, society, and the lives of others (Dr. J. Kevorkian). Perhaps the most common form of passive euthanasia is to give a patient a large dose of morphine to control pain, in spite of the likelihood of the painkiller suppressing the heart and respiration, causing death earlier than it would otherwise occur. These procedures are performed on terminally ill, suffering people so that natural death would occur sooner. It is also done on people in a persistent vegetative-state, or individuals with massive brain damage who are in a coma from which they cannot possibly regain their consciousness (Passive Euthanasia). Compassion and benevolence demand that we legalize assisted death for the sake of the ill and those who love them (Cauthen). Other methods of relieving the suffering of terminally ill patients are: giving medicine to relieve intolerable suffering despite the fact that it hastens death, providing continuous anesthetic, high levels of medicine to induce terminal sedation, giving medicine to relieve pain and hasten death, and administering a lethal injection that causes death quickly in order to relieve suffering (Cauthen). Some people argue that patients would be frightened that their physicians might kill them without their permission, but this is not a valid concern, because the patient would first have to request assistance in dying. If that individual didnt ask for suicide assistance, their physician would continue to preserve and extend their patients life (Passive Euthanasia). With the further graying of our countrys population, no doubt, the discussion will intrude into more and more corners of our lives (Legality). Euthanasia is a practice that should be opened to all who want it. It is a practice that should be legalized to benefit the terminally and mentally ill and the physically and mentally disabled people who are in intolerable pain and suffering from tremendous self- pity. BibliographyWork CitedBrazil, Janet. Enduring the End of Life.(April 17, 2000). Cauthen, Kenneth. Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.(April 16, 2000). Compassion in Dying. (April 16, 2000). Domin, Father Edward. Personal interview. April 21, 2000. Dr. Jack Kevorkian and Practices:(April 16, 2000). Egendorf, Laura K. Assisted Suicide Current Controversies. San Diego: GreenhavenPress, Inc., 1998: 116. Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization.(April 16, 2000). Jamison, Kay Redfield. Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999: 13. Kevorkian, Jack. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 99. CD-ROM. Microsoft Corp.,1998: 2. Legality. (April 16, 2000). New England Journal of Medicine, The.(April 16, 2000). Part 2. (April 16, 2000). Part 3. (April 16, 2000). Part 4. (April 16, 2000). Passive Euthanasia.(April 16, 2000). Physician-Assisted Suicide. (April 16, 2000). Right to Die Society of Canada, The.(April 16, 2000). Section 2. (April 16, 2000). Section 3. (April 16, 2000). Van Biema, David. Deaths Door Left Ajar. Time July 7, 1997: 30