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Assisted Suicide: Do we allow it or not?
Pro
Kimberly Nguyen
Issue date: 10/29/09 Section: Opinion
Assisted suicide has become a major topic in heated debates, which has become a moral and justice issue.
The law is in doubt to validate a person's right to assisted suicide.
For reasons many opponents would point out, assisted suicide negates traditional belief on the value of life. However, a person is entitled to his or her autonomy.
Each person should define the value of life in his or her own accordance.
A competent person should have the right to choose death. Even if the general public has desires to sustain life, personal liberty is violated with the prohibition of assisted suicide.
A patient bed-ridden and drugged for the remainder of his or her life, who exist as a vegetable, suffers from psychological problems.
A patient could be suffering from unbearable pain and does not have a desire to live.
It is unlawful and unjustifiable to strip this patient's right to pass on with dignity.
Since the Court has neglected the issue, it has been up to individual states to either enact a physician-assisted euthanasia law or one against it. The only state to enact the "Death with Dignity" Act was Oregon on Oct. 27, 1997.
This practice only applied to the terminally ill with six months or less to live.
And, assisted suicide is not a request to be taken at face value if it were legal in other states.
A physician should recognize if the patient has had psychosocial support, true understanding of his or her condition and if the patient's emotional and physical condition can be treated.
A physician should consult with another physician to agree if the patient will inevitably die from a natural cause in six months.
Nonetheless, assisted suicide has already become a secret embedment in the morphine that physicians prescribe to patients for some pain relief. Prescribed drugs to terminally ill patients create a slow death.
With many forms of slow deaths, the law should recognize assisted suicide as an option, which can rid this problem.
>Related links: Ethics in Medicine
The law is in doubt to validate a person's right to assisted suicide.
For reasons many opponents would point out, assisted suicide negates traditional belief on the value of life. However, a person is entitled to his or her autonomy.
Each person should define the value of life in his or her own accordance.
A competent person should have the right to choose death. Even if the general public has desires to sustain life, personal liberty is violated with the prohibition of assisted suicide.
A patient bed-ridden and drugged for the remainder of his or her life, who exist as a vegetable, suffers from psychological problems.
A patient could be suffering from unbearable pain and does not have a desire to live.
It is unlawful and unjustifiable to strip this patient's right to pass on with dignity.
Since the Court has neglected the issue, it has been up to individual states to either enact a physician-assisted euthanasia law or one against it. The only state to enact the "Death with Dignity" Act was Oregon on Oct. 27, 1997.
This practice only applied to the terminally ill with six months or less to live.
And, assisted suicide is not a request to be taken at face value if it were legal in other states.
A physician should recognize if the patient has had psychosocial support, true understanding of his or her condition and if the patient's emotional and physical condition can be treated.
A physician should consult with another physician to agree if the patient will inevitably die from a natural cause in six months.
Nonetheless, assisted suicide has already become a secret embedment in the morphine that physicians prescribe to patients for some pain relief. Prescribed drugs to terminally ill patients create a slow death.
With many forms of slow deaths, the law should recognize assisted suicide as an option, which can rid this problem.
>Related links: Ethics in Medicine
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