Assisted Suicide
Walking through the corridors of any hospital would show one several things. There would be people healing, hurting, dying, and coping with all sorts of problems. Even though some of them may share the same misfortunes, they are separated into two categories: those who are still fighting for their lives and those who have given up. To those who have given up, the thought of suicide always arises because one no longer has the desire to deal with a problem and they just want out. There may be a man whose withered and shaky hands can not even hold a cup for a drink of water which aides him in choking down the never ending line of pills he must take every day to keep his body from completely breaking down, or maybe there is a teenage girl who battles with not only the cancer that is eating at her from the inside, but also deals with the radiation and chemotherapy that is supposed to be curing her but only drains her more. If one were to look at these cases, one may say that suicide would be the easiest path to take. They might say that someone should help the suffering permanently and aid him or her in their death. After all, "No decent human being would allow an animal to suffer without putting it out of it
A final side in the assisted suicide controversy is the doctor. Sometimes doctors are in a difficult position because "they desire to understand the difference between prolonging death and sustaining life" (Tada 43). "Some doctors believe that better pain control could reduce the number of patients who would prefer to die rather than experience extreme pain" ("CNN Health" 1). "Physicians who oppose assisted-suicide say extreme pain is a highly motivating factor for patients who choose to take that route. Better and more effective pain relief, they say, is the best alternative. But it's not clear just how far doctors can go prescribing drugs without getting in legal trouble" ("CNN Health" 2). Others, such as Derek Humphry, feel that "dying individuals who wish to achieve a painless death ought to be allowed to plan for it" (Tada 27). Jack Kevorkian, a Michigan physician whose medical license was suspended after he assisted three woman in committing suicide, argued that he did not commit murder and his patients did not commit suicide. He called it medicide: when medical professionals perform suicide. He said the terms "suicide" and "euthanasia" have negative connotations. He also said "Research activity at the fringes of law and morality could be centralized, rationally organized, well controlled, and ethically validated in official 'suicide centers' created specifically for the good of moribund subjects by affording them a serene, dignified death as well as a proper atmosphere for completely ethical manipulations" (Opposing Viewpoints Series 67). This is just unrealistic and ridiculous. If the law did allow these "suicide centers", they would not be controlled nearly as well as they should be. Society would run into the same sort of things that it has with abortion, drugs, and
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Approximate Word count = 2026
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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