The Right to Physician-Assisted Suicide

Many Americans who have been fortunate enough to live physically and mentally healthy lives may struggle to understand why anyone would want to voluntarily end their life, but it is clear that certain conditions, including even non-terminal disorders, require more than just palliative care in order to perverse the dignity and autonomy of individual patient rights. At present, however, physician-assisted suicides remain illegal in the majority of the worlds 200 or so nations, but there has been a growing recognition among some countries, including the United States, that the practice is a humanitarian necessity which is long overdue in being legalized. To determine the facts, the purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the rationale that is used by both sides of this controversial issue in support of their respective positions, with the overarching goal of confirming the right to physician-assisted suicide. Finally, the paper presents a summary of the research and key findings concerning these issues in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

The debate over physician-assisted suicide has been emotionally charged and proponents and critics of physician-assisted suicide alike tend to rely on religious or moral arguments in support of their respective positions. For example, according to Keown, Whether the criminal law should permit doctors intentionally to end the lives of patients on request is probably the most important debate in contemporary law, medicine and ethics. Unfortunately, in that debate emotion often trumps reason, generating more heat than light (2018: 55). The contentiousness of this debate is readily understandable, though, given the severity and finality of ending someones life irrespective of any other factors as discussed further below.

Why physician-assisted suicide should not be legal

Critics of physician-assisted suicide maintain that existing protections for patient autonomy provide healthcare consumers with the ability to forego treatments, including medications, that may prolong their lives and laws that legalize physician-assisted suicide are not only unnecessary, they may cause some people to opt for this end-of-life solution when viable interventions are available (ORourke et al. 2017)....

…severely ill patients do not opt for end-of-life solutions without considering aggressive palliative care or medical interventions that have life-saving potential (Frank). In addition, a growing number of ethicists and theologians have recognized the ethical need to provide physician-assisted suicide as a legal right (Ebert 2018) Taken together, it is clear that even though physician-assisted suicide may be viewed negatively by some healthcare practitioners, patient autonomy and the fundamental right to control ones own life outweigh any arguments to the contrary.

Conclusion

It is reasonable to conclude that some opponents of physician-assisted suicide have never suffering a chronic, agonized medical condition or personally witnessed a close loved one experience a lingering and painful death while health care providers attempted to prolong life as long as possible. Because innovations in medical technologies and devices have contributed to longer lifespans, people are living much longer than just a century ago. These same innovations, however, have also exacerbated age-related health problems to the point where far too many people suffer needlessly while they waste away in a twilight…