Physician Assisted Suicide Research Paper

When discussing the topic of Physician Assisted Suicide, the main issue is debating whether or not it should be legalized in every state. Physician Assisted Suicide also known as (PAS) means a terminally ill patient requests a lethal dosage of medication, provided by a physician, intending to end his or her life. People who do not have the chance of a long term survival should have the right to decide if they want to continue living with their condition. However, there are some people that are convinced assisted suicide may be considered as self-murder..
According to the article “Why We Shouldn’t Legalize Assisting Suicide” by Burke J. Balch, J.D., and Randall K. O’Bannon, M.A. it is said that most people attempting suicide are conflicted. Most might say the attempt was a way used as a cry for help. “Psychologists have concluded that other motives for attempting suicide include retaliatory abandonment, aggression turned inward, a search for control, manipulative guilt, punishment, escapism, frustration, or an attempt to influence someone else. (Balch)” Many people concluded that there are many different reasons to why a patient may want to attempt, assisted …show more content…
Clair mentions that there are some cases where Physicians tend to make mistakes alike any other human being. An example of this is a case in the article that happened to be of a woman who was misdiagnosed with cancer and then given a dosage of painkillers. Later on the autopsy concluded that the Physician had made a mistake, the woman was in fact cancer free. If only the Physician had not prescribed the lethal dosage as the woman would have still been alive. There dozens of cases which are similar to this particular case. Physicians are trained and educated to help save lives and to help cure illnesses, when asked to take the life away from a patient, it is asking the physician to do the opposite of what their profession is meant to