Legalization of Physician-assisted Suicide - Essay Example

? Legalisation of Physician-assisted Suicide In some cases, people make decisions about their lives that may pose many controversies, which would not be easy to determine from any perspective of justification. In this regard, these issues become a great cause of dilemmas, which prevail for long without getting a simple answer to the course of action that people can take. One of these issues that trigger serious debates in different groups is associated with physician-assisted suicide, or euthanasia, which offers an opportunity for another person to assist an affected person in taking away his or her life. This has faced serious objections from various people in the society, while others are in agreement with the decision to have some people assist others in committing suicide based on the conditions that prevail. The issue of legalisation of physician-assisted suicide at national and international levels has for a long time continued to trigger debate among people in the society and has resulted in diverse perspectives: while in some countries physician-assisted suicide is legal, in others, there is a great struggle between various groups to legalise it and allow people to carry it out when need arises. Those who support and those who oppose the legalisation of physician-assisted suicide argue on their justifications not only according to their thinking but also with consideration of the ethical perspectives (Lachman, 2010). Legalisation of physician-assisted suicide is not a simple decision to make because it involves contradicting perspectives against and for considering the effects it has on the lives of the affected individuals. The rights that people have prevent them from killing others even with any justification and support from any organisation as far as the choice and authorisation are not from the affected individual. According to the right to life, every person who is living has the right to have the privilege of living within any environment in the world without any other person putting any form of limitation on the life of another. This implies that a person ought to have all that life gives so that he or she can enjoy it and find it easy to access various resources that life offers for them to live comfortably in the life they have. In this respect, no person has the right to terminate the life of another person because the right to live does not offer any provision for a special case in which a person has to end the life of another. The right to live does not imply in any way the duty of any medical practitioner to induce suicide to a patient in whatever condition he or she may be, but rather the duty to protect life (Jeffrey, 2009). According to some proponents of legalising physician-assisted suicide, it would lessen the pain of the affected as well as their family members so that they contain it with ease. In this way, legalising physician-assisted suicide will allow suffering people to make consultations with the family members before they take the action and before parting because they will be able to set time for it. This would allow them to reduce the negative implications of the suffering individual and come up with a solution that will have benefits for the suffering and those ones who relate to them (Lachman, 2010). Some people who support legalisation of physician-assisted suicide argue that individuals that are suffering have their own choices and they can decide to die with dignity rather than suffer from pain until death, which may take long to happen. This means that a person has a choice to make on the way he or she can end his life in circumstances that place him or her in a condition of suffering and without comfort, with minimal chances of surviving. As such, the suffering will need their right of choice to end his or her life be respected by the government bodies or other organisations which may have an opinion about the suicide (Jeffrey, 2009). Legalising physician-assisted suicide will help the patients with a terminal illness to reduce the waste of resources in caring that may involve investment in paying the cost of medication and insurance premiums, and to save the time that doctors have to spend treating the patients. This means that legalising physician-assisted suicide will have a positive economic impact on the relatives of the affected and the government at large through different organisations that are involved in the treatment. Legalising would be better not only for the patients and his or her relatives but also those with whom the patient shares a common institution of social amenities (Lachman, 2010). On the other hand, however, people have their own reasons to oppose legalisation of physician-assisted suicide according to their religious, ethical and rational understanding of life. For instance, some religious beliefs are opposed to any justification to allow the legalisation of physician-assisted suicide for any person regardless of conditions of the patient, because they believe that something can be done to change the situation and alleviate the pain of the individuals. Some reasons that they give to oppose the justification of the physician-assisted suicide include the facts represented below in the following paragraphs. In cases of corrupt deals involving government institutions, insurance companies and doctors, unnecessary pressures may mount on the affected individual to decide on the wrong thing. This is because the government or insurance companies may influence the doctors suggesting suicide, to avoid a lot of money they pay out for treatment, to patients who have chances of survival, rather than allowing them to pursue their treatment. This will mean that legalisation of physician-assisted suicide is potentially risky in cases where corrupt deals within the society involving the doctors and institutions offering care to the patient happen (Mosser, 2011). In allowing the death of people in the society through physician-assisted suicide, opponents of it argue that it sends a bad message to the people concerning various events in their lives. This is because some people imply that it is better to die than to live under the oppression of the disease or disabilities which they can have in their bodies and which may seem to make their lives difficult. Through this message, people who get affected with some diseases question the importance of life when they are suffering. This may affect the delivery of services by physicians because a section may have an opposition to it. The patients may regard their lives with less importance, and this may influence the outcomes of the treatment they receive from different caregivers in hospitals, because of the psychological condition which they may suffer in this case (Jeffrey, 2009). Legalising physician-assisted suicide may propagate the feeling that those who are ill and who are suffering some disabilities are inferior to some other people who are healthy. From this perspective, many people will be perceived as problematic to the society, which may lead to an issue where people have negative outlook on life and may turn hostile to the people that are affected by the disabilities and diseases (Anon, 2013). Physician-assisted suicide contravenes the beliefs of some religious groups who consider life as holy and that it does not have to be interrupted by any person apart from God who initiates it. This implies that all the people have their equal right to live until the time God decides to take away their lives by means other than being assisted by any other person to perform the duty of taking away life from a person (Lachman, 2010). Given ethical considerations, the issue of physician-assisted suicide is an act that does not have a moral justification because the affected, though facing difficulties, have chances to survive the condition. However, if the condition persists for long, it may exploit the dependants of the patient, which will cause more harm than good to them because they will have to spend a lot of money and other resources they would use in other activities. With the combination of individual rights, religious beliefs and ethical principles, the dilemma of whether or not to legalise physician-assisted suicide has remained difficult to decide. This is because while the justification of different perspectives has its own explanation of this issue, some have strong reasons to support their standing contrary to the perception of the majority of society. Through the disagreements, there are governments of some countries which have left the issue without legalisation because such different perspectives offer important insights into the consideration of human life. This means that the propositions in favour of and against the issue have important points to make in coming up with a decision of legalising or illegalising it, which complicates the issue. Arriving at a decision to legalise or illegalise physician-assisted suicide cannot take a simple perspective of the patient’s choice, resources and rights, but a consideration of its implication to other people and the potential benefit of doing or not doing it lays a significant weight on the decision. References Anon. (2013). Perception and persuasion in legal argumentation: Using informal fallacies and cognitive biases to win the war of words. Brigham Young University Law Review. Jeffrey, D. (2009). Against physician assisted suicide: A palliative care perspective. Oxford: Radcliffe Pub. Lachman, V. (2010). Physician-assisted suicide: Compassionate liberation or murder? Medsurg Nursing: Official Journal of the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses, 19(2), 121–125. Mosser, K. (2011). An introduction to logic. San Diego, Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Read More