The Controversy Surrounding Physician Assisted Suicide

When the word suicide is used, most people think of the gruesome gun to the head or overdose on medication. Everyone is quick to assume an act of suicide is somebody doing harm to his or herself. Not many people think of suicide as being something that a physician would help assist with, but it has definitely become a controversy over the years. Physician-assisted suicide is when a physician receives consent from a terminally ill patient to administer drugs that will eventually kill them. Before this may happen, there are a number of events that have to happen first. The patient must be informed of the alternatives, they cannot have a mental illness, and it must be a voluntary act that was not forced upon them. Physician-assisted suicide is …show more content…
This act of killing is supposed to be performed with the consent of the patient, but it is not always that way. According to Edmund Pelligrino, “If terminating a life is a benefit, the reasoning goes, why should euthanasia be limited only to those who can give consent? Why need we ask for consent?” Allowing physician-assisted suicide to become morally acceptable could lead doctors down a bad path in which they do not ask for consent from their patients. A doctor may feel that death is the best option for a patient, but the patient may not feel the same way. This is essentially an act of murder upon a doctor’s patient. Some may say that a patient’s physician is only doing what they are told. According to a survey conducted in Belgium, though, 66 out of 208 assisted deaths happened without the consent of the patient. In essence, this could be a felony and a slippery slope to …show more content…
The decision on whether or not physician-assisted suicide should be legal could be based off of one thing: the cost. According to slate.com, “Seconal costs about $125 for a lethal 10 gram dose, which comes in the form of 100 individual caplets.” As proven by the statistic, the pills for assisted death are much cheaper than the cost to treat cancer. In an article on takepart.com, it says, “Of the 12 drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration for various cancer conditions in 2012, 11 were priced about $100,000 for a year of treatment.” The price for cancer treatment is 800x the amount of an assisted death. Many people probably view this as a pro of assisted death and would lean towards this option due to the fact that it is much less expensive. However, because it is very inexpensive, more individuals will want to take the easy and cheaper way out. They may think, “Why pay thousands of dollars when I can pay a little over one-hundred and be done?” This is not the mindset one should have though. A person should hopefully want to continue living and this decision should not be changed due to the fact taking a few drugs will cost less than the treatment to stay