An Easier Way Out Essay, Research Paper

An Easier Way Out

Doctor Kevorkian and other so-called “death doctors” should be permitted to assist in the premature deaths of the terminally ill. Although many states outlaw assisted suicides, nevertheless, they should by made legal for terminally ill patients. These patients may not want to suffer a long, painful death. The terminally ill will not get well, they might decide to make the decision of ending their life alone if they cannot receive proper help, and assisted suicides may one day be useful in discovering how the human brain works or perhaps find a cure to some fatal diseases.

First, the terminally ill patients will not get better or become cured of the disease they have. According to many medical physicians the expression “terminally ill” means being in the final stages of a disease that is incurable (Hentoff, p.10). If a person has a despairing disease such as AIDS, that person may not want to live the rest of their short life with all the pain and frustration.

Next, the terminally ill might injure their body even more by taking up the decision in their own hands. Offering help in assisted suicides to the fatally ill would prevent anything like this from happening. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals created a law that prohibited physicians from helping their patients die (Lemonick, p.82). Now, patients who are terminally ill and who wish to die might decide to kill themselves in a manner that is less humane than with a lethal injection or dosage of medicine. This new law makes it much harder to get proper help in

attaining an assisted suicide. This clearly would cause many more problems than it would do good.

Last, there are many ways that using terminally ill patients that can benefit science and the medical fields. Doctor Kevorkian has been advancing a proposal to allow condemned criminals and terminally ill patients to perform tests on their brains while they are still alive and willingly know they will die soon afterward. Kevorkian claims that these human experiments allow us to fully understand how the human body functions. He also proposed to allow the criminals who are condemned to donate their organs for transplant. (Hosenball, p.28-29). Through studying on live humans we would gain a much greater understanding of ourselves and possibly discover some new medicinal drugs.

The terminally ill will not recover from their disease, they might decide to unlawfully take their own life and possibly get hurt severely in the process, and the experimentation on certain criminals and mortally ill patients would aid in the development of new drugs. Allowing assisted suicides in our country would be a great asset and opportunity for people who will not recover to end all the suffering. The legalization of assisted suicides would prevent many accidents from occurring such as people committing the act of suicide and being unsuccessful. Legalizing aided suicides would also prevent people from killing themselves illegally. With all of the technological advances in our community today the legalization of aided suicides is a must. For the sake of all humanity and virtue in our society today, exercise your freedom of choice and look at assisted suicides with a different, but, moral perspective.

Hentoff, Nat. “From Assisted Suicides to Euthanasia.” Village Voice 14 May 1996: p. 10

Hosenball, Mark. “The Real Jack Kevorkian.” Newsweek 6 Dec. 1996: p. 28-29

Lemonick, Michael. “Defining the Right to Die.” Time 15 Apr. 1996: p. 82