Assisted Suicide

Assisted Suicide

Life, itself has always been confusing and mysteries to all of us. To which as individuals we all end up living a completely different life for one another. The suffering that some must endure is only felt by that certain person who is feeling it, we can not feel the pain others go though we can only imagine it and sometimes what we imagine is not even close to what they are feeling. Which, at sometimes with this mixed emotions what we need is not necessarily what they need or want. We need to learn how to let go.

We always dream of having are loved ones live a very long life but sometimes this is not possible. It is either from a cause of illness or accident of some sort. Either or some of them end up suffering more then they are supposed too because we are not ready to give up on them. But unfortunately at times they need us to let them go and end their suffering. The way of ending some patient's life is either by euthanasia or assisted suicide. Many individuals do not know there is a difference between assisted suicide and euthanasia. Euthanasia is when a person commits the ending of someone's life. Some people believe that this has become a moral issue. Some believe it to be medical issue, while others believe it to be a religious issue and believe it to be murder to help someone end their own life. Personally, I am torn between the two because I believe that killing is immoral but in some cases, assisted suicide may be an alternative to eternal suffering. Physician Assisted Suicide is when a physician supplies information and/or means of ending the patients' life. The difference is that assisted suicide is when a person helps someone to end his or her life. Euthanasia comes from a Greek word, meaning "easy death," and is now often associated with the infamous Dr. Kevorkian. There are three types of euthanasia - what doctors consider to be "letting the patient die," for instance taking both conscious and unconscious patients off of life support, not reviving the patient in case of a heart failure, etc.

Active euthanasia involves causing the death of a person through direct action, in response to a request from that person. Involuntary euthanasia is used to describe the killing of a person who has not explicitly requested aid in dying. This is most often done to patients who are in a persistent vegetative state and will probably never recover consciousness. The first two states to legalize assisted suicide was Oregon and then Washington State and now so has Montana. On October 27, 1997, physician- assisted suicide became a legal medical option for the terminally ill residents of Oregon. (Pezgar, pg. 113) The law in Oregon that allows this is known more commonly as the Death with Dignity Act. The Death with Dignity Act allows terminally ill Oregon residents to obtain a lethal dose of medication from his/ her physician and legalizes physician-assisted suicide but specifically prohibits euthanasia. (Pegzar, pg. 113)

Deontology would be the best choice to best describe and resolve