Ethical Arguments Against Physician Assisted Suicide

The United States is currently in a rut of anti-progressivism. In few areas is this reality more evident than in the popular objection to physician-assisted suicide. Physician assisted suicide, for the sake of argument, is the opportunity given to an individual suffering from terminal illness to end his own life quickly and painlessly by means of prescribed drugs. The practice provides relief for those under immense pain and suffering, but is a sensitive issue to argue in favor of, particularly because of its unwholesome connotation. However, Physician Assisted Suicide is defended by US Standards of Law and Medicine and should therefore be legal throughout the United States for patients with a terminal illness and life expectancy of 6 months or less. A common moral argument against Physician Assisted Suicide is that it disobeys the Hippocratic Oath: the set of moral guidelines for any doctor or administrator of medicine. The section which is specifically referenced by such opponents is “Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course” (INSERT CITATION). However, the Hippocratic Oath (the original version, in particular) fails to provide an effective basis for opposing PAS because it is irrelevant to modern medicine. One …show more content…
Furthermore, the system must also ensure that the patient alone possesses the judgment required to become aware of, consider, request, and receive PAS from an impartial doctor. The original Hippocratic Oath also sets many standards which are already ignored by modern medicine. For example, the phrase “Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion” (which appears immediately after the “do no harm” segment) is now ignored by Constitutional Law (INSERT