The issue of whether doctors should be allowed to assist patients in suicide has been a very sensitive and emotional topic for people of both sides. With machines to substitute organs and blood, there is no doubt technology have saved and prolonged many lives. Although medical studies on improving life have increased, many patients have lost their will to live, or some feel pressure to end their lives with the growing cost of medical care. Questions on the value of life have risen; people's rights, whether doctor assisted suicide is allowed, and who would decide for the person are all issues that play significant roles in the debate. Nevertheless, despite weak opposition of positive effects for doctor assisted suicide, doctors who grant patients lethal medicines or injections lose control of their judgment and often kill patients without their knowledge. If assisted suicide became legal, in many states, it could endanger lives.

             Although assisted suicide is morally wrong, many people feel that terminally ill patients should be given the privilege of early death. The fear of pain has been the main factor when terminally ill patients want doctor-assisted suicide. "Society can ask for three things: that doctors be humanitarians and not merely scientist, that life support mechanics and other aspects of modern medical technology not be used where there is no hope, and that when the patient is suffering from severe pain it be relieved by medicine even if this means shortening the life of the patient" (Barnyard 89). However, relieving a person from pain can be done in other ways. People who want doctors to have more compassion must realize if doctors face people wanting to be put to death everyday, they may lose their morals. Furthermore, a person may feel the pressure to commit suicide if assisted suicide is ever made legal. Because of these pressures, a person may not be reasoning rationally.