Arguments for the Legalization of Suicide - Essay Example

? Physician assisted suicide be legalized Number Submitted Introduction One of the medicine’s most vital purposes is to allow the people to die with much better control, dignity and comfort. This provision is only available for the people who are suffering from hopelessness due to their fatal illness. The techniques and the philosophy of comfort care can provide a humane alternative to the traditional, curative medical approaches that has helped the patients to achieve this end. However, there are times when the patient is suffering from the incurable illness and would suffer exceptional pain before death, despite all the adopted efforts to provide them with comfort. Under such circumstances, some of these patients would decide to die rather than continue to live under these conditions. At this stage, in order to ease their ongoing pain, few of the patients request assistance from their physicians (Blank & Bonnicksen, 1994). The patients who ask for such favours do not fall into simple diagnostic categories. The spectrum of patients who has been asking for this favour is very wide and the range of physicians’ response is equivalent to nothing when compared. Yet each request can be compelling and their ongoing life is miserable. Few of the examples include a person who is suffering from AIDS from eight years and as a result, has lost his sight and also losing his memory; a mother with seven children suffering from ovarian cancer, who can no longer eat and has bedsores on her abdomen (Blank, Bonnicksen, 1994). These are the sort of cases for which the physician assisted suicide must become legal. Supportive argument Physician assisted suicide is part of Euthanasia. In 1985, the Dutch Government Commission has defined this as the deliberate act in which the patient’s life is terminated on the request of the patient by a physician. The same government defines physician-assisted suicide as the act in which the patient takes the lethal drugs her or himself. According to the Oregon Death with Dignity Act 1994, physician-assisted suicide is defined as “the prescription of a lethal dose of medication for a person with a terminal illness (Dees, Dassen, Dekkers & Weel, 2010). In 1994, the state of Oregon, USA, has legalized the physician-assisted suicide. In this year, 0.12 % of the annual death rate was recorded by this process. In Belgium, when physician-assisted suicide was legalized in 2002, 0.3 % of the annual deaths were labelled under its title (Lachman, 2010). The above discussed statistics show that physician assisted suicide has not affected the overall death rate of the states. It can also be concluded that the process was used only in the dire situation for deserving patients. Other than this, in Physician Assisted suicide: Compassionate Liberation or Murder, Lachman (2010) states that the legalization of assisted death has shown significant improvements in the level of communication between the patient and the physicians and in palliative care training for the physicians. In order to reduce the influence of assisted suicide in the wrong direction, certain implications can be used such as raising the retirement age; this will help the older people to remain active for a longer period of time. This will also help the older people to continue with their contribution to the society and a fewer number of people will suffer from the long period of decline before death. Other than this, a considerable time must be given to the patient between the oral and the written request. In case, it is seen that the patient can turn down his request by the help of psychological counselling, it must be provided to him/her. Most importantly, the patient who is opting for physician assisted suicide must be the resident of the state. Any case from outside the state must not be catered. Due to such implications, it will be made sure that the suicide assistance is given only to the deserving patients. Counter argument At first, assisted suicide seems to be a good thing that is available in the society to reduce the pain. However, on the closer inspection it can be said that the legalization can be turned out to be a very serious mistake. It is shown that the decision to commit suicide by the help of the physician can be perfectly rational and not the result of mental illness. A person would only consider suicide as an option under severe conditions of suffering. Thus, it can clearly be rational. However, if we keep in mind the religious and moral grounds it is still wrong (Dees, Dassen, Dekkers & Weel, 2010). In few of the cases, people are in adverse conditions but they are not going to die immediately. Thus, the truth is that the physician cannot tell the time after which the patient will die. Moreover, it is not necessary that the diagnoses made by the physician are 100 percent correct. Thus, people who could be saved from the death are thrown on the face of death. It is also seen that the managed care bureaucracies and health maintenance organizations have mostly over-ruled physicians’ treatment decisions. This assisted suicide and the profit-driven managed health care can proved to be the deadly mix and can become the most significant problem. The overall cost of the lethal medication that is generally used for assisted suicide is far cheaper than the treatment cost of most of the long term medical conditions. Thus by denying the treatment, the money can be saved which can be very attractive to the HMOs. In case the assisted suicide becomes legalized, the quality of health care system will decline and the danger of increase in the number of deaths will be eminent (Golden, 2011). Response to counter argument However, in order to avoid such problems Lesser. H (2010) has discussed the following guidelines in “Should it be legal to assist suicide” that can be practiced: The most important point and the point that is strongly used in order to favour this act is; the assistance can only be provided for those people who are seriously ill and has reached to the stage where apparently no cure is available. The patient must be given time to think properly. Therefore, the permission should be taken twice. The other strategy that can be applied by the government in order to keep the assisted suicide rate under control is to make the provision of the means of death retains in the hand of qualified doctor: only if his conscious permits him to do so. Moreover, once the patient agrees for the assisted suicide a specialised team of doctors must examine the condition of the patient and on the basis of their report it must be decided whether the doctor should help the patient with the suicide or not . The last point is that every case must be reported to the police with proper evidence along with the report that is prepared by the specialized doctors. These criteria would surely protect the people from incompetent attempts to assist dying by their own or by their people. Due to this reporting system, it will become exceptionally difficult to commit murder and disguise it as assisting suicide. Since the assistance is only provided to the patients who are seriously ill. It would mean that very little could be gained from murder or undue influence. These points will exclude those whose desire to die was irrational. After the implications of such rules, it can be concluded that the availability of assisted suicide would certainly do good. As it is not to harm anyone, thus it is not morally wrong. It is a relief for those people who can find escape from their pain only through death. The possible harm that can be done to the people is that they might choose to go for assisted suicide if they are suffering from mental illness or run under the pressure (Dees, Dassen, Dekkers & Weel, 2010). These moral issues can be avoided if proper guidelines are observed. Conclusion The application of assisted suicide is a very serious job as it is a matter of life and death. It can be used to relieve the suffering of the dying patient. On the other hand, it can also be used to kill few of the patients. This is the point where the assisted suicide becomes legally dangerous. However, if the rules are keenly observed by the states in order to ensure that only the rightful cases are considered for assisted suicide, only then can this process be legitimated. For the patients who are suffering from cancer, AIDS, poorly managed pain amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or other fatal illnesses should be allowed to opt for the physician assisted suicide. This will help them not only to see themselves die with dignity but also relieve them from adverse form of pain (Blank & Bonnicksen, 1994). References Blank.H. R, Bonnicksen.L.A, (1994). Medicine Unbound: The Human Body And The Limits Of Medical Intervention. Columbia University Press. New York. Assessed on 19th October 2011. from http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=5qhAQpt7a2QC&oi=fnd&pg=PA188&dq=Should+physician-assisted+suicide+be+legal%3F&ots=yWXwPqDu2F&sig=Kokbj9XYLoilj8eesDQk8jKMuN0#v=onepage&q=Should%20physician-assisted%20suicide%20be%20legal%3F&f=false Dees.M, Dassen.V.M, Dekkers.W, Weel.C, (2010) Unbearable Suffering Of Patients With A Request For Euthanasia Or Physician-Assisted Suicide: An Integrative Review. Psycho- Oncology. p. 339-352 Assessed on 19th October 2011. from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=17ee9af7-e627-45f8-9e20-0c230fe7ef1c%40sessionmgr14&vid=2&hid=13 Golden. M. (2011). Why Assisted Suicide Must not be Legalized. Assessed on 19th October 2011. from http://www.dredf.org/assisted_suicide/assistedsuicide.html Lachman. V,( 2010) Physician-Assisted Suicide: Compassionate Liberation or Murder? Assessed on 19th October 2011. from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=dae65edb-24fc-44d9-8dab-ee9dc4ce8fde%40sessionmgr13&vid=2&hid=13 Lesser .H. (2010). Should it be Legal to Assist Suicide? Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice p. 330-334. Assessed on 19th October 2011. from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6020e72c-656f-4012-a7c2-2d2a87998095%40sessionmgr12&vid=2&hid=13 Read More