Doctor Assisted Suicide
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: t
Ultimately, despite weak opposition of positive effects for physician assisted suicide, doctors who grant patients lethal medicine or injections lose control of their judgment and often kill patients without their knowledge. People may also not be in the right frame of mentality when they want to die. There is a very fine line when it comes to whether or not a doctor is justified to play the role of God. Although there is a strong argument on both sides, not legalizing doctor-assisted suicide has more pros than cons. If assisted suicide was ever legalized, it could cause many more problems to arise. If doctor assisted suicide was legalized, it would be virtually impossible to control. One place where it would be hard to control would be in the court system. "No one knows for sure what the medical world will be like once the legal shackles against assisted suicide are removed, but we can guess" (Leone, Bruno 95). With so many different people, conditions, and cases the courts would not be likely to give each request for death a fair amount of time to investigate. Eighteen years ago, after David Rivilin broke his neck in a swimming accident at age twenty, he decided that he'd had enough and wanted to die. Intellectually unimpaired, but so severely paralyzed he depended on a machine to breathe, the judge granted him his wish. She justified it by saying it would not be an illegal assistance in Rivilin's suicide, it would be the granting of his legal right to refuse medical treatment. When his doctor turned off his respirator he quickly died. Five days before he died, Rivilin said, "I don't want to live an empty life, lying helplessly in a nursing home for another thirty years" (Smith 50). Rather than search for a way to get him out of a nursing home, the court sanctioned his death. With not enough time and people in courts to analyze each indivi
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Approximate Word count = 1252
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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