Legalization Of Assisted Suici Essay, Research Paper

Anyone who has watched a loved one suffer from a terminal disease or unrecoverable injury for any length of time will tell you after death, It was time to let her go, or At least he s not in pain anymore or She suffered terribly, for too long. In these instances, death is seen as a blessing, or deliverance. If death is inevitable, and the only obstacle between the patient and death is pain, suffering, and the terrible indignities of being unable to care for one s own body, then assisted suicide becomes a gentle and dignifying option for patients and their families. Terminally ill or irrevocably injured patients should have the right to legally choose assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide is defined as the act of killing oneself intentionally with the assistance of another who provides the means, the knowledge, or both. Examples of assisted suicide include the following:

A physician gives the patient information about how to take a lethal dose of a drug and writes a prescription for the drug knowing that it is the intention of the patient to kill oneself with the drug. The patient takes the lethal dose and dies as a result.

A friend of a partially-paralyzed woman goes to the pharmacy to get a prescription for barbiturates filled, brings them to her, pours them into her hand, and brings her a drink to wash down the pills. The woman takes the pills with the drink and dies as a result.

The necessary and sufficient elements of assisted suicide are that the patient is the agent of death but death results from the assistance supplied by another person. Physician-assisted suicide is a doctor supplying a death-causing means, but the patient performs the act that brings about death.

Euthanasia, refusal of treatment, or treatment aimed at the alleviation of suffering that may shorten life are not considered assisted suicide. Euthanasia is not a form of assisted suicide because the person wishing to die does not accomplish the final act. The word ‘euthanasia’ comes from the Greek — Eu, “good”, and Thanatos, “death”. Euthanasia, if one refers to the Greek origin of the word, means a good death, a gentle easy death. Euthanasia differs from physician assisted suicide because the physician actually performs the death-causing act after determining that the patient indeed wishes to end his or her life. Euthanasia has been referred to as: the deliberate, rapid, and painless termination of life of a person afflicted with incurable and progressive disease that is leading inexorably to death. Euthanasia is the administration of death to the dying. Refusal of treatment applies to a patient’s denial or discontinuance of life-support technology, such as a respirator or artificial nutrition. Administering drugs for the alleviation of suffering that may shorten life is when the physician prescribes drugs primarily for pain relief that may have the secondary effect of causing death.

One of the initial barriers many patients face is that by the time they reach a point of unbearable suffering; they are no longer able to commit suicide themselves and are now rendered helpless by laws that prevent assisted suicide. In 1993, Erwin Krickhahn suffered from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or Lou Gehrig s disease, and had nothing to hope for except prolonged pain and an excruciating death. Knowing this, he decided to end his life while he was still able to do so himself. However, it took so long to find a sympathetic doctor to prescribe the barbiturates he needed that he had already reached a point where he had to be fed by others. A lawyer advised his friends and family that if they were to help him ingest the pills then they would be subject to criminal prosecution. The lawyer also advised them that even serving him an alcoholic beverage to hasten the effect of the barbiturates, or even being present in the room while the medication took effect could be prosecuted. Erwin Krickhan would have to suffer the agonizing effect of ALS, gradual paralysis of the entire body and the terror of the inevitable suffocating death awaiting him. Because his mental faculties would be spared, Erwin would be fully and terrifyingly aware of the degeneration of his body and gradual loss of breath that would precede his death. Palliative care would probably spare him the worst of his final moments, but the months of agonizing pain and suffering would have to be endured. Had physician-assisted suicide been legal, his primary care physician could have responded to his anguished pleas for a prescription of barbiturates, and maybe counseled him on the most effective way to ingest them. He could have made his own final arrangements and he could have said a dignified goodbye to his family and friends, before the disease robbed him of his speech. He could have chosen the moment of his death, when he felt like he had given it the good fight but before the needless suffering. And he could have died in the presence of those who loved him or in complete privacy, empowered by his life, his dignity and the right to make his own decisions about his death.

Attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who for over ten years has represented former physician Jack Kevorkian, is resolute in his belief that each individual has the right to choose assisted suicide. I have been at the center of this along with Jack Kevorkian for the last six years, and I am telling you, I have never heard a rational argument why a mentally competent, sick or dying person does not have an absolute right, under certain controlled circumstances, to end their suffering without government. I don’t see how rationally you can make an argument in this country, where over 20 years ago, it was declared a fundamental right for a woman to control her own uterus and make decisions about an unborn child how you can resolve the in favor of a woman despite those arguments and not allow a mentally competent dying or suffering born person to abort themselves ?

Many who oppose assisted suicide state that hospice care is an acceptable alternative. A person could go into a hospice program and receive not only first-class pain management but also comfort care and personal attention. Fortunately quite a bit of terminal pain can today be controlled with the sophisticated use of drugs. In some cases, in the final days in hospice care when the pain is very serious, the patient is drugged into unconsciousness (’terminal sedation’). Unfortunately, there are many diseases and conditions that do not qualify for hospice care. In most hospice programs, you must have a clear prognosis from a doctor that you have less than six months to live before you can be accepted. What about the patient who cannot use her arms, legs or hands due to multiple sclerosis, who suffers agonizing pain due to the degeneration of her nervous system, but who could live like this for ten years or more? Hospice is not an answer for her. While hospice addresses the needs of the rapidly dying patient beautifully, it is not a blanket alternative for assisted suicide.

Another consideration is theological; does suffering ennoble one to higher spiritual ground? Is suffering, and relating to Jesus Christ’s suffering on the cross, a part of preparation for meeting God? Or is suffering part of taking on the pain of the world, and is the patient now a tzaddik, a healer or holy one, practicing tikkun olam, the healing of the earth. Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society, asks the question, Are you merely a steward of your life, which is a gift from G-d, and which only He may take away? My response is this, if your answer to these questions is ‘Yes, G-d is my master in all things,’ then you should not be involved in any form of assisted suicide. So if your faith or religion prevents you from participating in your own death, so be it. However, those who believe that G-d does not want his children to suffer, who believe that choosing the manner of their death is a part of empowering and dignifying their life, and who believe that forced suffering is a blasphemy against the gift of life, then assisted suicide should be a moral option.

People who oppose decriminalization of assisted suicide see an essential difference between withholding and withdrawing treatment, and assisted suicide. They argue that when life-sustaining treatment is withheld or withdrawn, death results from natural causes. When assistance with suicide is provided, death results from unnatural causes. As Dr. Emanuel states, When you cease treatment or disconnect a person from life-prolonging equipment because the treatment has become disproportionate or because the individual feels he no longer has the desire or the ability to fight, there is a clear difference between allowing death to occur naturally and causing it. I believe that, essentially, the crux of the answer lies in this. It is the whole question of allowing death to occur naturally versus causing it. In the majority of states in the country, it is legal to cause death via capital punishment, but it is illegal to cause death for an equal if not greater social good. Allowing one to choose to spare themselves pain, indignity and expense by enabling their own death and providing them with the professional and social support to do so is quite possibly the most empowering and life-affirming choice one can make. Assisted suicide must become a legal right in America.