Legalizing Physician Assisted Suicide

Because of the numerous improvements made in medical technology these days, doctors are literally able to postpone death. People are being kept alive by machines. But a longer life does not necessarily mean that the patient is not in pain. For example, an elderly man lies helpless in a hospital bed after being diagnosed just 10 months earlier with acute emphysema. The only way he can breathe is through a respirator. This man is in immense pain and he has no hopes of getting any better. With the help of physicians, this man does not have to suffer anymore. By legalizing assisted suicide, this man can make the decision on whether to die quickly and painlessly or to live with the catastrophic pain while his life withers away slowly. Situations such as this, along with other reasons, are why physician assisted suicide should be legalized.

Several people have no idea what physician assisted suicide is. Physician assisted suicide is "the practice of providing a competent patient with a prescription for medication for the patient to use with the primary intention of ending his or her own life" (Medicinenet.com, 2003). "On October 27, 1997, Oregon's Death With Dignity Act became law, thus legalizing physician-assisted suicide (PAS)" (Altmann and Suzanne, 2007). Oregon's law requires two doctors to consult and agree that the patient would otherwise die of natural causes within six months, agree that the patient is considered of sound mind, and agree that the patient is able to self-administer the lethal dose of medicine (Guthrie, 2006). Even with Oregon being the only state within the United States that has legalized physician assisted suicide, the overall number of terminally ill patients ending their lives only counts for one-eighth of one percent of Oregonians dying by PAS (Oregon, 1994).