Assisted Suicide Essay, Research Paper

I feel that assisted suicide is a practice that should not only be legally acceptable, but socially acceptable as well. No one should be forced to live a life of pain and suffering. After all, aren’t we all guaranteed the rights of life, liberty, and happiness? If happiness means freedom from pain and suffering, then assisted suicide should be legalized. A person willing to help sick people end their suffering should be praised rather than condemned.

Some terminally ill patients are forced to face imaginable pain and suffering on a day-to-day basis. This intolerable pain causes these people to experience an unbearably poor quality of life. Yet, if you help these patients end their life, you will probably end up in jail. I feel that being forced to live in intolerable conditions is the real crime. People such as Dr. Kevorkian should not be punished for doing a good deed. He should in fact be praised for heeling the pain of a dying person. Having to live a life where every passing minute is dreaded is something that no person should have to experience. Money is a big issue to everyone whether they admit or not. Should a person and their family be forced to spend thousands of dollars a day on medical expenses just so the patient can continue living a life he doesn’t even want to keep? This medical treatment, in some instances, can only extend a life by mere weeks. In theory, this treatment is just adding on more weeks of pain and suffering. Not only does the patient have to suffer, but the family members have to suffer watching their loved ones live in agony. Furthermore, these medical expenses are probably covered by government medical aid. If this money is being spent on someone who doesn’t even want the help, wouldn’t it make more sense to spend the money on people who desperately need it? This money could be better spent on saving people’s lives that actually want to live. Cancer patients could be allotted more money to pay for their chemotherapy. Aids patients would be able to earn federal assistance in purchasing their desperately needed medication. The extra money could also be used to improve the quality of peoples’ lives who are forced to live in unpleasant conditions. For example, burn victims could earn extra money to help pay for their reconstructive surgery. Legalizing assisted suicide could in return benefit our government.

Allowing assisted suicide could also be beneficial in clearing up overcrowded hospitals. Doctors are constantly being overwhelmed with work. There are just far too many patients and not enough physicians to aid all of the them. A patient who wants to stop receiving the medical help that is keeping them alive, and have drugs administered to end their suffering, should be allowed to do as they wish. This refusal of help could allow more time for the doctors to save the lives of people who desperately want to live. By fulfilling someone’s wish of dieing peacefully, you could indirectly be saving someone else’s life.

Assisted suicide is something that no person should be denied of. If a person wants to end their life of pain and suffering, then they should be allowed to die in a peaceful manner. Making laws against assisted suicide is only going to make the lives of many Americans more difficult. People such as Dr. Kevorkian provide a service that is desperately needed. If assisted suicide is a crime without a victim, then it shouldn’t be rejected by the American society.