Legalize Physician Assisted Suicide

Imagine, in this moment, you are told you only have six months to live until you die from an inoperable disease. All of those family vacations, awards you have won in your life, and great achievements in your life suddenly become nonexistent. Not to mention, in those last two months, your family has to watch you sit there in a hospital bed and have your quality of life slowly dim to nothing. Brittany Maynard was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor at the age of twenty-nine and was given six months to live. She began to research physician-assisted suicide and decided that it was the best choice she had left to save her dignity. Physician-assisted suicide is the act of a doctor ending the life of a patient who is terminally ill using a lethal
Terminally ill patients, like Brittany Maynard, that sit in hospitals for the rest of their days generally feel their liabilities hovering over them. The main issue these patients have is watching their family have to pay all the hospital bills. Patients usually feel guilty about this because they know that when they die, their family will go into financial debt. According to an article that is for the legalization of assisted suicide, “The cost of maintaining a dying person has been estimated as ranging from about two to ten thousand dollars a month" (Torre 1). If the patient were to die naturally it would be painful for the patient, and it would leave the family in financial ruin. We, as citizens, must also consider that in the final stages of a patient’s life, the medicine does not take away the pain as much as it used to because the body has adapted to the frequent use of it. Assisted suicide would be a good option for a scenario like this because they would die in a calm area without any burdens. Not only would it fix the financial problems within a family, but often times when a patient
Of those people who chose to go through with physician-assisted suicide, a majority were aware of what they were planning to do. Recent statistics show that people who go through with assisted suicide are well-educated and realize their choices, regarding the fact their doctor tells them multiple times. An article was published giving background information to US citizens about this issue and what would happen if it was legalized nationwide. The author states, “seventy-eight percent were sixty-five or older, 93.1% were white and well-educated, and seventy-two percent had cancer” (Harkness 4). Of the people who chose assisted suicide, a majority of them were knowledgeable and thought through their other choices and decided on this. This process is not easy; assisted suicide is intricate and complex to reassure that this is the option they want to choose. If this option was open for patients who needed it, it would leave the family with a feeling of completion. Moreover, this procedure would the leave the patient with a feeling of honor from their loved ones. Not only do they realize their choices, but they also have the respect from other citizens in America to go forth with this. The NPR staff took a poll before and after the debate about the legalization of assisted suicide. In both surveys, more people were in favor for the