The right to assisted suicide is an
important issue that concerns people all over the world. People always go back
and forth about whether a terminally ill patient should have the right to die
with the assistance of a physician. Some are against it because of religious
and moral reasons. Others are for it because of their compassion and respect
for the dying. Personally, I support the view that we should allow them to die
if there is no chance of survival and if they are in so much pain that all the
pain management means available are not alleviating the person’s pain and
suffering. It is sad to realize that these people are in great agony and that
to them the only hope of bringing that agony to a halt is through assisted
suicide. So, we should allow them. I don’t consider euthanasia as murder. The physician
or the nurse must examine their own belief when taking care of such patients. The
physician and the nurse owe to respect and accept the patient’s right to
decide; provide respect for patient autonomy. So, everyone involved in a
terminal ill patient should recognize and enhance patient’s freedom of choice
and provide comfort and privacy. Anyone can experience the pain and suffering
of a terminal ill patient. The goal of treatment is to relieve pain and give
them comfort as much as possible, so if the patient think that the pain is unbearable,
and nothing is reliving that pain, the patient should be granted the wish of whatever
he is asking even if it results to death.
I just finished reading M. Diarra’s blog Right to Assisted Suicide. My mother was with my grandfather during his final weeks of life, and she has told me some horrible stories about watching my grandfather die from cancer. I can understand why proponents of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide contend that a terminally ill person should have the right to end his/ her suffering with a quick, dignified, and compassionate death. However, my belief is that euthanasia and physician assisted suicide should be illegal. Doctors have a moral responsibility to keep patients alive. It is the fundamental value of their Hippocratic oath. The American Medical Association Code of Medical Ethics states that permitting physicians to engage in assisted suicide would ultimately cause more harm than good, and that it is fundamentally incompatible with a physician’s role as a healer. Government should not have the right to give one group of people the power to kill another group. It is just wrong! I worry about the “slippery slope”. Robert Beezer LLB, Judge on US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, wrote in his dissenting opinion for Compassion in Dying v. Washington, that the poor, minorities elderly, infirm, and handicapped are at risk of being unwanted and subjected to pressure to choose physician assisted suicide rather than continue treatment. Legalizing euthanasia and physician assisted suicide would pose serious societal risks. Procedural safeguards could not adequately protect vulnerable populations from unscrupulous doctors and others in order to prevent abuse if euthanasia was made legal. What is to prevent insurance companies from offering incentives to terminate lives in order to save money? The only way to achieve adequate protection for these groups is to maintain the laws prohibiting euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. Most patients request lethal drugs not due to pain but because they are concerned with losing their dignity and being a burden on others. There must be a better option! The solution needs to be to care for people in ways that assure them they have dignity and that it is a privilege to care for them, and that they are not a burden. The American College of Physicians states that society’s focus should be on efforts to address suffering and the needs of patients and families. Society should focus on improving hospice and palliative care. This is how doctors and society need to address terminally ill people… with real compassion!
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