Physician Assisted Suicide

Physician-Assisted Suicide and the Euthanasia Debate

In defiance of the Christian teachings, Michel de Montaigne wrote:
“Death is a remedy against all evils: It is a most assured haven, never to be feared, and often to be sought: All comes to one period, whether man makes an end of himself, or whether he endure it; whether he run before his day, or whether he expect it: whence soever it come, it is ever his own, where ever the thread be broken” (Boyd). In this quotation, Michel de Montaigne reveals that an individual should have a degree of control over the design of one’s death. With the advance of medical technology, the debate concerning euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide has become more controversial. With the improvement of modern medicine, human life spans have lengthened over the centuries. However, sometimes machines can only prolong the death process and keep an individual in a painful and undesirable condition.
The Netherlands and Belgium are the only countries that permit euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. The difference between euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide is in euthanasia a third party intentionally performs the last act causing a patient’s death, while physician-assisted suicide involves the patient performing the last act through the assistance of a physician. By legalizing physician-assisted suicide, the procedure would become a “medical treatment” that a patient could have the ability to choose as an alternative to alleviating pain and suffering attributed to a terminal illness. The current bans on physician-assisted suicide serve as a means of restraining the subject of suicide and causing physicians, as well as patients, to withdraw from any discussions about suicide (Marzilli). Furthermore, Dr. Timothy Quill, an advocate of physician-assisted suicide, believes a patient that questions the physician about suicide serves as an excellent indicator that something is missing from the patient’s treatment. Dr. Quill and... [continues]

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