by Chrystal Mahan

Created on: October 13, 2009

Should Doctor-Assisted Suicides Be Legalized for the Terminally Ill?

I believe it would be a person's right if these choose to be euthanized when terminally ill. No one wants to prolong death or suffer. These days it seems I am not alone. A survey of 2000 doctors showed us that only 6% said they have assisted in patient suicides, only 18% said they have even received such a request, and 1/3 of these have given the requested help. Most who admitted in assisting said they only did it once or twice, 1/3 said they would write prescription in lethal dose if legal, and said they would give a lethal injection if legal. So what does this tell us? To me it can say a few different things. It could say not enough doctors where questioned to really give us a good picture of the situation. What about the area the doctors lived? It could also be many doctors are not being honest, or it could just be that this is such a new topic that one can conclude nothing from that.

I don't think this is a new subject. I just think it is just now getting talked about out in the open, out in the mainstream. But, what about the great wars this country has seen over the last 60 or so years. What about those soldiers that were wounded with no chance of survival? We have all seen the movies, despite the fact it is a movie, we know, deep down, many of those "put me out of my misery" stories are true.

For this topic we are going to look at Richard T Hull's theory "The Case for Physician -Assisted Suicide." Hull is a professor of philosophy that is for assisted suicides, but only for the terminally ill. One should also note that he feels this should be a regulated procedure and not just something any doctor can do whenever he feels in necessary.

Hull feels that the reason patients choose to want the right to die is due to the inadequate care patients spend their last days with. Many doctors are unable to give them the adequate narcotics necessary for pain management, so the patents end up suffering. He does bring up one important discussion. How would one know if it was really the patient talking, or the illness? How then would you draw the line and let one live and another die? Who's to say that the one you must let live because they don't fall into a certain criteria don't try to take matters into their own hands?

Next we look at the opposing side. Margaret Somerville law and medical professor said the euthanasia is a no. She stakes the claim that this procedure has no regard for human life. The principle behind the theory is that it is wrong for one individual to take the life of another, except in justified self-defense. (Somerville) She has two major arguments against the process of euthanasia.

Impact on Society is the first one. Somerville states that legalizing such a procedure would damage many social values. She defines euthanasia as "an act that requires two people to make it possible." Her second argument states allowing this procedure would have a huge impact on medicine. She believes the society as a whole, they way we know it would be in a upheaval that we could never come back from. It would change the focus of the entire world and is that something we are ever going to be ready for? Something we ever want to face? Somerville states that the entire process is just a simplistic, wrong and a dangerous response to the reality of human death. She concludes that those who are asking for assistance in dying are at their most vulnerable, their weakest, and fear loss of control or abandonment. She believes this is placing them in a category where their only alternative is to be killed or killed themselves.

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