The fine line between legalized murder and mercy killing. Physician assisted suicide is a practice where terminally ill patients with only a few months to live are given the option to die on their own term. Despite the fact that it has been legalized in a few countries it is widely controversial. Candidates for physician assisted suicide are patients over 18 years old who have been given less than six months to live. Terminally ill patients are prescribed lethal drugs with the intent to end their lives. Although terminally ill patients should fight for their lives, patients should have the right to die on their own terms.
A passage written hundreds of years ago is set as the standard of medical practice. The Hippocratic Oath is a Greek …show more content…
The amount of money spent on end of life care is substantial. Reuters stated “About 35 percent of the money spent on health care during the last year of life is spent during the final month.” (Reuters). With those savings we could better the medical field with newer equipment and better medicine. In the Netherlands PAS is common, they have collected statistics from their average savings in medical costs and the results are notable. A post in the Orlando Sentinel, referring to the savings in the Netherlands, expressed“2.7 percent of the deaths are from euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, most of them cancer patients. In 90 percent of those cases, the patient 's life is shortened by four weeks or less. That would translate to 62,000 deaths in the United States and savings of $10,118 per person.” (Reuters). With these statistics, even if as little as 0.1 percent of the population in United States was to die from PAS the savings would be over $3,280,528,786. With these great savings essentially health care costs would be significantly …show more content…
With that in mind there needs to be a distinct differentiation between caring and killing. Physician assisted suicide violate the doctor 's hippocratic oath to refrain from killing or doing harm. Although doctors may be doing harm to their patients they are also promoting lifes if patients who practiced PAS donated their organs they could save the lives of people dying on the organ waiting list. PAS causes many religious concerns resulting the patient to be rejected by their church. Each individual is in control of their body and they should have the freedom to choose what to do with it. PAS puts weak social groups such as the disabled, elderly, and poor at great risk for abuse. The savings from PAS is substantial and would lower the cost of medical care. PAS prevent the chance for the patient to recuperate from their illness and fully recover. PAS would aid patients suffering from the symptoms of their disease. Regardless of the message and purpose behind PAS it is still murder. PAS gives patients the opportunity to retain their
A passage written hundreds of years ago is set as the standard of medical practice. The Hippocratic Oath is a Greek …show more content…
The amount of money spent on end of life care is substantial. Reuters stated “About 35 percent of the money spent on health care during the last year of life is spent during the final month.” (Reuters). With those savings we could better the medical field with newer equipment and better medicine. In the Netherlands PAS is common, they have collected statistics from their average savings in medical costs and the results are notable. A post in the Orlando Sentinel, referring to the savings in the Netherlands, expressed“2.7 percent of the deaths are from euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, most of them cancer patients. In 90 percent of those cases, the patient 's life is shortened by four weeks or less. That would translate to 62,000 deaths in the United States and savings of $10,118 per person.” (Reuters). With these statistics, even if as little as 0.1 percent of the population in United States was to die from PAS the savings would be over $3,280,528,786. With these great savings essentially health care costs would be significantly …show more content…
With that in mind there needs to be a distinct differentiation between caring and killing. Physician assisted suicide violate the doctor 's hippocratic oath to refrain from killing or doing harm. Although doctors may be doing harm to their patients they are also promoting lifes if patients who practiced PAS donated their organs they could save the lives of people dying on the organ waiting list. PAS causes many religious concerns resulting the patient to be rejected by their church. Each individual is in control of their body and they should have the freedom to choose what to do with it. PAS puts weak social groups such as the disabled, elderly, and poor at great risk for abuse. The savings from PAS is substantial and would lower the cost of medical care. PAS prevent the chance for the patient to recuperate from their illness and fully recover. PAS would aid patients suffering from the symptoms of their disease. Regardless of the message and purpose behind PAS it is still murder. PAS gives patients the opportunity to retain their