Assisted Suicide
Posted: Saturday, August 27, 2011
by Rose-Marie Chaperon
Chaperon Consulting, LLC
Assisted suicide is one subject most people would disagree with due to religious belief. They were born and raised learning that life has intrinsic value, and it should be protected no matter the cost. It is understandable, though tragic, that some patients in extreme duress such as those suffering from a terminal, painful, debilitating illness may come to decide that death is preferable to life. In my opinion assisted suicide is wrong an unethical because taking or ending a life under any circumstances is immoral.
Other issues are, it has great potential for abuse. People without family support or adequate finances, as well as the depressed, could be pressured to choose death. Physicians can be wrong about estimating how much time a patient has left, causing unnecessary deaths. The public will lose its confidence in the medical profession if physicians get into the business of helping people kill themselves.
Assisted suicide contradicts the Hippocratic Oath taken by physicians upon completion of medical school. It also contradicts the principle of non-maleficence which requires of medical professionals that they not intentionally create a needless harm or injury to the patient, either through acts of commission or omission. Therefore it should be illegal and patients who wish to die should not be allowed to ask physicians to assist them in ending their lives.
Medicine is not an exact science, predicting when a person will die is also not exact; often patients are given three months to live. Five years later, they are still alive. No one can predict with 100% certainty who will live and who will die. Although it is rare, some terminally ill people can and do get better. If cancer and HIV patients along with any other terminally ill patients routinely kill themselves rather than undergo treatment, then we have removed a reason to perform medical research to cure these diseases.
Of course other options should be available to physicians instead of participating in assisted suicide; physicians should be allowed to aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life. Patients should not be abandoned once it is determined that cure is impossible; however, they should be made comfortable until the dying process happens naturally. Patients near the end of life must continue to receive emotional support, comfort care, adequate pain control, respect for patient autonomy, and good communication. At no time should any lethal medication be administered.
One might object here to my view on assisted suicide because they think that a person who is suffering should be allowed to die in peace and they should have a say so as to when life should end. Although personally I would never assist nor agree with someone who wants to end his life, I can also understand why a person would want to. A person who is terminally ill and knowing that death is imminent should probably be allowed to end life as soon as possible. Major pain affects a person’s ability to think properly and coherently. Chronic and life-limiting illness can also make a person feel like they have lost all control of their lives. The body isn’t doing what it should and there’s no way to stop it therefore asking assistance to end the suffering might be a way for the patient to control the illness, if only they can at least control how they die. These arguments although understandable are considered weak points to me, therefore my opinion still remains the same, if one agrees with this line of thought, and moral problems still arise concerning taking a life in my opinion life means so much to me, it would be a crime to end it prematurely.
This Article has been viewed 281 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.