Physician Assisted Suicide:
Death With Dignity or Legal Murder?
I. Introduction
Physician assisted suicide, since its legalization in the Netherlands in the early 2000’s, has spawned a heated debate on whether or not a patient afflicted with an exceedingly serious, terminal illness has the right to die. This controversial question has led many experts and researchers, to publish their own opinions on the divisive topic of PSA, including Mary Louanne Friend, author of “Physician Assisted Suicide: Death With Dignity?”, and Lisa Soleymani Lehmann and Julian Prokopetz, authors of “Redefining Physicians' Role in Assisted Dying”. These authors approach the topic of Physician Assisted Suicide from vastly different perspectives, with Friend examining the topic from a legal standpoint and discussing the legality of PSA, and Lehmann and Prokopetz approaching the issue from a …show more content…
To further differentiate their view points, these authors use varying structural, linguistic, and reference styles throughout their essays.
II. Structure
Despite a similar start in the form of an abstract in both “Death With Dignity” and “Redefining Physicians’ Role”, both essays quickly branch off into different structural formats. After the abstract, Lehman and Prokopetz begin to detail PAS’ rise in prominence in the medical community and the treatments triumphs in several legal battles, but quickly present a new problem posed by some in the medical community saying, “Many medical professionals are uncomfortable with the idea of physicians playing an active role in ending patients' lives… This position is not an insurmountable barrier, however; we propose a system that would remove the physician from direct involvement in the process” (97), thus creating the framework for a conversation on how a physician could opt out of providing an
Death With Dignity or Legal Murder?
I. Introduction
Physician assisted suicide, since its legalization in the Netherlands in the early 2000’s, has spawned a heated debate on whether or not a patient afflicted with an exceedingly serious, terminal illness has the right to die. This controversial question has led many experts and researchers, to publish their own opinions on the divisive topic of PSA, including Mary Louanne Friend, author of “Physician Assisted Suicide: Death With Dignity?”, and Lisa Soleymani Lehmann and Julian Prokopetz, authors of “Redefining Physicians' Role in Assisted Dying”. These authors approach the topic of Physician Assisted Suicide from vastly different perspectives, with Friend examining the topic from a legal standpoint and discussing the legality of PSA, and Lehmann and Prokopetz approaching the issue from a …show more content…
To further differentiate their view points, these authors use varying structural, linguistic, and reference styles throughout their essays.
II. Structure
Despite a similar start in the form of an abstract in both “Death With Dignity” and “Redefining Physicians’ Role”, both essays quickly branch off into different structural formats. After the abstract, Lehman and Prokopetz begin to detail PAS’ rise in prominence in the medical community and the treatments triumphs in several legal battles, but quickly present a new problem posed by some in the medical community saying, “Many medical professionals are uncomfortable with the idea of physicians playing an active role in ending patients' lives… This position is not an insurmountable barrier, however; we propose a system that would remove the physician from direct involvement in the process” (97), thus creating the framework for a conversation on how a physician could opt out of providing an