While slowly experiencing a terminal death, the pain of a life-threatening disease is unbearable. The constant anguish of a helpless cancer patient who lies there with intoxicating discomfort. This leaves the patient with a question, “Should I decide to call upon a physician to end my pain? ” What is morally right in this situation? I believe that life is a privilege and should not be taken by choice, no matter what you are going through.
Even though this endures their end without the unnecessary suffering and cost, we should not use this method of killing, because some physicians are put under an oath, and physicians do not have the right to end suffering. The method of killing we are using is done with a lethal drug called Euthanasia. This drug that the physicians are giving to the patients is allowing them to have a painless death. Our life should not be taken away from us; we need to fight to the end.
We should not have to be given two choices in life weather to get killed by your doctor or a lethal drug. Helping someone cut their life short is nearly as bad as murdering them yourself. We shouldn’t have to be forced to choose assisted suicide because of our financial situation. There is always a possibility that a miracle will occur and the patient will overcome the illness. What if the doctor could have provided the wrong prognosis to the patient? Doctors will only gain more power if assisted suicide is legalized.
Currently, physician assisted suicide is legal in three states: Oregon, Washington, and Montana. “One of the most surprising statistics this study generated was that approximately 17 percent of dying Oregonians considers physician assisted suicide (Dobscha)”. Centuries ago the physicians Hippocrates wrote the Hippocratic Oath. The Hippocratic Oath has been used by physicians as a code of ethics for more than two thousand years. Many physicians took when they became physicians.
It states that when treating patients, physicians will, “First do no harm” and “I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked nor suggest any such counsel (Rockett)”. This oath protects the patients, physicians, society, and families. If physicians are put under and oath it would make physicians assisted suicide illegal. So if doctors use this type of killing method then they are disobeying the law. Physicians could get in serious trouble for using this type of killing method. Physicians could probably go to jail and lose their jobs.
In 1997 President William Jefferson Clinton signed the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997. The law’s intent was to clarify Federal law with respect to restricting the use of Federal funds in support of assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing. This act banned the funding of assisted suicide through Medicaid, Medicare, military and federal employee health plans, veterans’ health care and other federally funded programs. The most important reason we should not use this method of killing is because it does not have the right to end suffering.
They may feel that it will permanently relieve their suffering and burdens on their loved ones. But that shouldn’t be the case because your loved ones should stick by your side until the very end. Suffering is just a part of dying when going through a terminal illness. You may not want to suffer any longer but you should not just give up in life. Fight to the end and when it’s your time to die then you should have lived a long pleasurable life. Purposefully helping a patient die is wrong under any circumstances.
According to Marcia Angell, former executive editor of the New England Journal of Medicine put it this way: The highest ethical imperative of doctors should be to provide care in whatever way best serves patients’ interests, in accord with each patient’s wishes, not with a theoretical commitment to preserve life no matter what the cost in suffering. . . . The greatest harm we can do is to consign a desperate patient to unbearable Suffering – or force the patient to seek out a stranger: (Rogatz) In this case this would give doctors a license to kill and doctors shouldn’t have the right to do that to patients.
More than 75 percent of members of the Massachusetts Medical Society have voted to oppose physician assisted suicide since a meeting in 2004. Most patients who are for physician assisted suicide thinks that if they will die it will cut down the cost and suffering for their families. I believe that this is true, so their family will not have a lot of medical bills and see them suffer any longer. But I also think that this method of killing is wrong because a physician has no right to kill any patients, whether or not the patient wants to die.
Statistics show that 45 percent of Americans morally except physician assisted suicide, 48 percent thinks that it is morally wrong, and 3 percent differ. (Saad) In conclusion, although this method of killing endures their end without the unnecessary suffering and cost, we should not use this method of killing for two reasons. First, physicians are put under an oath. But most importantly, it does not have the right to end suffering. Physician assisted suicide is a very controversial issue that today’s society is dealing with.
The idea of a doctor ending the life of a patient does go against medical ethics. I would be startled to know the idea of my physician is killing their patients. Nobody should choose when and how they die. When it’s your time to die then you should die peaceful. Life is too precious and valuable and should not be taken for granted. People were given life for a reason and whether that reason is to work through a terminal illness or to make it through life without any health problems. Someone who fights through a terminal illness dies with a lot more dignity than someone who takes the easy way out.