Should the Legalization of Assisted Suicide Continue in the US
Should the Legalization of Assisted Suicide Continue in the US
Assisted suicide is one of the most popular legal and medical ethical dilemmas. For decades, clinicians and stakeholders in law have argued for and against the legalization of assisted suicide. Assisted suicide, also referred to as death with dignity or euthanasia, is a practice of prescribing lethal medications to a terminally ill patient to relieve them from the pain and suffering connected to the illness (Keown 26). Where legal, this practice is often done at the patient’s request. Assisted suicide is legal in some American states, but it remains a debate in a majority of states (Emanuel 80). There have been questions over the ethics of allowing medical professionals to legally end their patients’ lives at the patients’ request. However, after evaluating the pros and cons of euthanasia, the pros seem to overpower the cons. The legalization of assisted suicide should continue in the United States because it demonstrates respect for patient autonomy, relieves terminally ill patients from suffering, and enhances safe medical practice.
Assisted suicide should be legalized because it respects patient autonomy. All patients have a right to governance over their actions. This means that people have a right to choose the medical interventions that they would like to be used on them and the ones to forego. Autonomy is one of the four main principles of medical ethics. Physicians and other healthcare professionals are required to, above all, respect the patient’s autonomy (Karlsson, Milberg, and Strang 36). Regardless of what the health care professional believes to be right, they are supposed to allow the patient to choose the interventions that they want. The role of the health care professional in this case is to disclose all important information that will assist the patient in making their decision (38). Euthanasia is a medical intervention that patients need to be allowed to choose. A person suffering from a terminal illness should have the ability to forego the pain and suffering that comes before death. There should not be any legislation that makes it impossible for people to forego their autonomy when it comes to choosing death without suffering.
Assisted suicide should be legalized because it relieves the patients of pain and suffering. This practice is also referred to as death with dignity because it allows patients to protect their dignity by dying before their illnesses reduce their ability to use a lot of their human functions. Relieving pain and suffering has been one of the main goals of medicine since its inception. Doctors are supposed to use interventions that have the least possible pain and suffering on a patient (Jordan 12). Therefore, assisted suicide can be considered as a compassionate and humane act. For instance, a person who has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) experiences a gradual loss in muscle functionality. This problem persists to a point where the patient cannot breathe due to the inability of the muscles in the lungs to function well enough to allow respiration. If such a patient chooses assisted death, rather than experiencing pain while waiting for their body to gradually lose the ability to breathe, they should be allowed to do so. Assisted death should be allowed for such patients who need to skip to the inevitable part of their illness, which is death.
Medical practitioners in support of legalized assisted death have also supported it as a safe medical practice. Aiding patients to safely die is perceived as a way of preventing other forms of suicide. Suicide is common in terminally ill patients (Dugdale, Lerner, and Callahan 787). An estimated 18.6% of terminally ill patients contemplate suicide (Choy 265). A large number of these people end up committing suicide to save themselves from the suffering associated with the terminal illness. For instance, depression is highly prevalent in cancer patients. People who have been diagnosed with cancer have a high risk of being suicidal because of the feelings of hopelessness, demoralization, excessive pain, and being a burden to others (Frati 28). If the death of such a patient is inevitable, it is safer to have a medical professional help them to safely end their lives rather than allowing them to commit suicide using other strategies.
However, many people have been against assisted suicide, causing the long debate that has prevented many states from legalizing this practice. One of the main arguments against assisted suicide is respect for the value of human life. People against assisted suicide believe that no man should have the right to determine which life is valuable and which is not (Snijdewind et al. 1127). Assisted suicide is believed to be based on the assumption that the lives of people who are suffering from a terminal illness are l