Physician Assisted Death And Virtue Analysis

“It is in accordance…with basic principles of liberty and self-determination, and by allowing a dying person to satisfy his or her own values without posing serious harms to others, it satisfies the requirements of consequentialist, utilitarian moral systems” (Battin, nd). Many people with a terminal illness are dealing with unspeakable suffering, and can do nothing but attempt to control their pain. People want to live a life of dignity and die with dignity. People go through their lives living it as they see fit and making the choices they want. Part of the choices they make is the right to choose death on their own terms. If a terminally ill patient with still all their faculties about them, makes the choice to end their life before they …show more content…
Furthermore, there are those who say that legalizing physician assisted death will lead to a slippery slope that forces this way of death on the disabled, elderly, and poor, instead of providing the palliative care that they may want and need. The doctors and nurses may also be prompted to give up on recovery much too early, when the person may still have a chance (npr.org, 2014). People also may choose it because they are receiving poor quality health care or because they are simply afraid to face a non-life threatening health concern. For instance, in April 2007, a woman was granted physician assisted death because of long standing tinnitus. In 2012, two twins who were deaf at birth opted out of life in order to avoid the prospect of blindness (Byock, 2014). Opponents are afraid that physician assisted death will go down a dangerous slippery slope, allowing whomever wants to end their lives for whatever reason. They also say that physician assisted death is the same as murder. Murder is the deliberate ending of someone’s life, which is what physician assisted death is. It is terminating a life in a premeditated, calculating manner. From a religious aspect, the opposition will also say that doing this is like playing God. That only God has the power to give and take life. And your life will be taken when God decides. People are put on …show more content…
People want to be remembered as what they are, before they become the person that nobody recognizes as the illness completely takes over. It is not a simple black and white topic, it is something that needs to be taken into account on an individual basis. But in general, people have a right to control their own bodies. We live in a country that boasts the acknowledgement of basic human rights. How is this not one of them? As long as both parties agree that this is the best option and no one is getting hurt, why should they be forced to suffer for a few more days until their body just gives out? Just as someone is allowed to choose to have a potentially life-saving procedure, so is a person who knows that there is no life-saving procedure for them allowed to choose to end their own life (as this is inevitable) on their own terms. The right to assisted death should be given to those who are terminally ill. This right would allow them to leave this earth with dignity while they are still themselves, and relieve them of their insufferable agony. To bestow upon them this necessary right is to give them the autonomy to close the book on a life