Assisted Suicide
The ethical and moral issues surrounding assisted suicide are presented in this paper through interviews and research. Assisted suicide has always been a controversial subject and it continues to be controversial although there are people who believe it is moral, ethical, and should be made legal.
My Neighbor and Friend -- Ms. Rogers -- Interviewed February 4, 2015
Ms. Rogers is a 55-year-old Caucasian widow who lives in my neighborhood. She graciously agreed to be asked questions as to her views on assisted suicide, and so an interview was scheduled.
She was asked about her personal moral values and her religious beliefs regarding voluntary assisted suicide, and she said that she is a devout Christian and thus, she said that only God can give life, and only God can take it away. Her views are very much shared by many Christians and people of other faiths, so it was no surprise to learn that she basically opposes assisted suicide.
No matter what the justification, healthcare professionals have no business interfering with one's life, she said. Healthcare professionals are there to protect lives and promote good health, and if and when they participate in euthanasia, it should be considered murder, she insisted.
There is no doubt that Ms. Rogers has given a lot of thought to this topic because there was very little delay from the time I posed a question to the time she gave her response. She said that she was wholly against making assisted suicide legal. But she also said that although a patient near death has the perfect right to autonomy, and to determine that he or she would be better off ending life than continuing to suffer, a professional in the healthcare industry should not be part of the process of terminating that life.
Ms. Rogers went on to say that because nurses and physicians have taken an oath to do no harm, how could they morally, ethically go against that oath, she wondered? Instead of having one's life ended by assisted suicide, she said that when there is a terminal illness a patient should be receiving palliative care or hospice care, which includes measure such as morphine to reduce pain and suffering.
A nurse's job is to have compassion and to maintain his or her professional boundaries, Ms. Rogers said; those boundaries include helping the person to live and die in dignity, but death should not be brought on by assisted suicide.
A Healthcare Colleague -- Interviewed February 5, 2015
I interviewed a healthcare colleague who is also a friend and a neighbor, and she said she believes in the philosophy put forward by Wiccan Morality ("an" it harm none, do what ye will"). Basically she adheres to the philosophy that relieving the suffering of a frail person who is terminally ill is a good thing. We put animals to sleep that are suffering and cannot recover, and while humans are a very different species (to say the least), when I comes to our own mother or grandmother who is suffering, we should be able to help these sufferers to pass on peacefully. Especially if they...
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