Doctor Assisted Suicide Duty

Improved Essays
Doctors should be obligated to carry out doctor assisted suicide on the request and order of terminal patients.

The first and foremost reason to why doctors should be required to carry out doctor assisted suicide is because every terminal patient has the right to die in order to avoid the pain and suffering that occurs in the long term. While human life can be argued to be highly valued in society, prolonging a terminal individual’s life will bring upon unjust suffering heavily. Therefore, it is the duty of the Doctor to carry out P.A.S (physician assisted suicide) when a patient requests it. An example of when this fundamental right was denied to an individual was when Diane Petty appealed to the United Kingdom’s Court for the right for P.A.S. This was, because she had motor neuron disease which attacked her nerves and caused excruciating pain throughout her body. The United Kingdom upper courts denied Diane Petty the right to an assisted suicide on the basis that it was immoral and that human life was sacred. Unfortunately, after she had been denied by the courts, her final moments alive were living out the fear that she had wanted to avoid. Up to the time around her death, she would lose the ability to breath at random and suffered intense pain from her nervous system. This continued for weeks until she
…show more content…
Doctors would be relieving the family of the financial baggage that can be a result of terminal treatment. In 2016, the average cost of End of Life treatments, including staying at the hospital, rose to about $10,700 per patient. That $10,700 is money that is being wasted by delaying what the patient knows will eventually happen. Therefore, the doctor is doing more for the patient and their family by relieving them of the heavy costs of hospital care while also letting the patient pass away guilt free, knowing their family won’t have the financial

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The purpose of this essay is for the Writer to examine and analyze methodology and legalities of ending one’s life options and ethical foundations surrounding the right to life targeting the following areas of concerns: 1) Physician Assisted- Suicide; and 2) Pro-life Proponent arguments. Background This writer understands the complexities of life as how many differences exist regarding physician- assisted suicide (PAS) as a state of suicide and pro–life choices that can be deemed by some as ethical suffering. Today, End of Life (EOL) does not have to be considered suicide or a war against pro-life when making competent choices such as advance directives, transitional services and or resources that could ease anxiety in decision-making choices…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Should Physicians-Assisted Suicide be allowed in the United States? Many patients and doctors around the country have debated the right for physicians to assist in patient suicide. Doctors should be allowed to assist in the suicide of terminally ill patients who are suffering and are going to die regardless of the time they have left. Patients should be allowed the right to choose to live or die when cancer or some genetic disease has taken over their body.…

    • 297 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    They then move into a hospital culture where a death, even among aged, is seen as a failure,” (102). In physician assisted suicide, it is imperative to realize that the patient is choosing to die with dignity and on their own terms instead of being deteriorated by sickness. Ultimately, a doctor’s main purpose is to cure their patient, but in extreme cases with no cure, there is nothing one can do except to alleviate suffering. By giving the patient the choice of death, physicians are allowing their patient to die on their own terms and with…

    • 1335 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    If patients wish to end their life, there are two different methods they can use: physician assisted suicide (PAS) or euthanasia. The ultimate difference between these two methods is that in PAS, the patients are required to commit the last act that will kill them, even though physicians would have to be involved in order to prescribe them the lethal drugs. Thus, the actual killings would be the patients’ work. Euthanasia differs from PAS in that it must only occur when patients would otherwise endure suffering throughout the remainder of their lives.…

    • 2191 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The routine practice of physician assisted suicide raises serious ethical and other concern. Legislation would undermine the patient's physical relationship and the trust necessary to sustain it; alter the medical profession role in society; and endanger the value our society places in lives of disabled, incompetent and vulnerable…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Right to Physician Assisted Suicide "The right to choose to die when in advanced terminal or hopeless illness is the ultimate civil liberty. " This is a quote by Derek Humphry, whom assisted his cancer stricken wife, Jean, in her suicide. The reasoning for the desperate act was to relieve her of her pain and indignity of inoperable bone cancer that became too much for her. There are other ill patients that want the same relief as Jean, but society is denying them their right of personal autonomy. Physician assisted suicide (PAS) would give these patients an end to the suffering they are desperately seeking.…

    • 1086 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Assisted suicide or physician assisted suicide more specifically is the act of a medical professional actively giving a terminally ill patient the means with which to end their life. This usually occurs through the prescribing of a lethal dose of a medication, which after dispensed is giving to the patient to administer themselves. The concepts of assisted suicide and euthanasia have been around since the conception of medicine. Terminally ill patients suffering through painful deaths often seek assistance in hastening the inevitable with medical help.1 Medicine has the ability to painless end of suffering of these patients, but the legality and ethics of the issue have been rigorously debated. Should medical professionals be able to, at the…

    • 2469 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    I. Physician-assisted suicide, under various names and colloquial definitions, has been a documented ethical issue for centuries – not to mention an undocumented ethical issue since the hypothetical dawn of life. By common understanding, physician-assisted suicide is death either directly or indirectly permitted or carried out by a physician. In simple terms, an “out” is provided. For this reason, it is often associated with chronic pain or terminal illness. Suicide where the doctor in charge is directly involved is perhaps the first situation which comes to mind when one thinks of euthanasia.…

    • 2007 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Death as a Decision: The Effects of Physician-Assisted Suicide For many years, the ongoing controversy of whether or not a person should be able to be clinically assisted by a physician to end their own life has been circling the minds of many people. According to the textbook, assisted suicide differs from medical euthanasia in that the physician is necessary but not sufficient for the act. In assisted suicide the patient needs to do the final act which is to take the lethal medication.…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Doctor assisted suicide provides guidance to patients who wish to end their life, from their darkest and desperate moments suffering a terminal illness or excruciating pain. Allowing doctors to have the power to perform this act and help assist in one’s suicide should be legalized. What if our society and our legislation system could help, what if they could offer a third party, when patients no longer have the strength to fight anymore. Medical technology has advanced throughout the years, and has the power to prolong the lives of humans. The technology has the ability to support and save a patient’s failing lungs, however for the terminally ill; there are times when pain medication does not suffice , the reality just means prolonging…

    • 775 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    One of the many ethical dilemmas surrounding health care today is physician assisted suicide. Many will misinterpret this as Euthanasia because they both accomplish the same goal, causing the death of a person. However, physician assisted suicide is different because of the way that death is accomplished. Boudreau and Somerville (2014) explain that, “In assisted suicide, the person takes the death-inducing product; in euthanasia, another individual administers it” (p. 2). The physician in the case of physician assisted suicide is removed from the actual act of death.…

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Patients facing a painful death due to terminal illness still deserve the right to choose. When a patient request euthanasia or physician assisted suicide, it is important to find out the underlining reasons for this decision and make all means available to relieve the pain and other discomforting symptoms before resorting to euthanasia or physician assisted suicide. A medical evaluation should be given to anyone considering these options in order to determine whether the patient is mentally competent to fully understand the choice they are making, as well as determining the severity of their illness to see if it is in fact life threatening. The unbearable suffering may be due to inadequate palliative care support or inadequate pain relief (Oxford 2002). Therefore, the safeguard measure is to improve the palliative care (Oxford 2002).…

    • 1420 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    According to CNN, one in every four Medicare dollars goes to just 5% of beneficiaries in their last year of life. The average care for one person at the end of their life is around $39,000 (Landau). In many cases, these extreme costs are often not worth it. They do not always improve the patients quality of life, and they only extend life for a few months at the most (Landau). The cost of care at the end of life for these terminally ill patients is often intensive, harsh, traumatic, and includes a lot of prolonged…

    • 1245 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Other factors include the desire to preserve dignity and personhood in the dying process and opposition to prolonging life by using sophisticated medical technology when it is recognized that care is futile. Closely related to self-determination is the principle of autonomy. This principle states that persons should have the right to make their own decisions about the course of their own lives whenever they can. By extension, they should also have the right to determine the course of their own dying as much as possible. The ethics of physician assisted suicide (PAS) continue to be debated.…

    • 1421 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Physician-Assisted Suicide Essay Outline I. Introduction - There is a controversial debate throughout the United States for the last decade regarding physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, many believe having a Doctor prescribe a self-administered lethal drug to a patient is diminishing the value of life. While others believe this method should be the patients’ right to choice when the pain and suffering from a life threatening illness should cease. II. Main Point # 1 - Will Physician-…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays