Should Physician-Assisted Suicide be legal?
Kelly Stevens
PHI 103 Informal Logic
Instructor Michele Clearman Warner
January 4, 2011
Should Physician-assisted suicide be Legal?
When society ponders over the idea of physician-assisted suicide, they most likely feel that the act itself would compare to murdering someone. Who really has the authority to say what is right or wrong when a loved one wants to end their life because of a terminal illness or a severe physical disability? President Clinton signed the Federal Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction in 1997, which prohibits the use of federal funding for physician-assisted suicides (The Gale Group, 2002). However, also in 1997, the state of Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act that legalized the physician-assisted suicides (Youngston, R.M., Dr., 2000). This paper will show why it is important for physician-assisted suicide to be legalized in all states and territories in order to assist the terminally ill and severely disabled patients who are not capable to take care of themselves and want to have a right die with dignity.
Everyone has his or her own opinion about physician-assisted suicide, but what about the patients who have to suffer physically and mentally because of an incurable type of cancer or have a stroke that have left him or her paralyzed and they are unable to help themselves? People who have been diagnosed with certain types of incurable cancers can suffer a slow agonizing death. Patients who suffer from an incurable cancer experience endless periods of vomiting, coughing, extreme pain and lose control of their bodily functions (Messerli, J., 2011). There is a woman whose name is Cody Curtis, and she was diagnosed with Cholangicarcinoma in December of 2007. Cholangicarcinoma is a type of cancer that runs through the bile of a person’s liver. Cody’s cancer traveled to her lungs and lymph nodes after having her first surgery and... [continues]
Kelly Stevens
PHI 103 Informal Logic
Instructor Michele Clearman Warner
January 4, 2011
Should Physician-assisted suicide be Legal?
When society ponders over the idea of physician-assisted suicide, they most likely feel that the act itself would compare to murdering someone. Who really has the authority to say what is right or wrong when a loved one wants to end their life because of a terminal illness or a severe physical disability? President Clinton signed the Federal Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction in 1997, which prohibits the use of federal funding for physician-assisted suicides (The Gale Group, 2002). However, also in 1997, the state of Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act that legalized the physician-assisted suicides (Youngston, R.M., Dr., 2000). This paper will show why it is important for physician-assisted suicide to be legalized in all states and territories in order to assist the terminally ill and severely disabled patients who are not capable to take care of themselves and want to have a right die with dignity.
Everyone has his or her own opinion about physician-assisted suicide, but what about the patients who have to suffer physically and mentally because of an incurable type of cancer or have a stroke that have left him or her paralyzed and they are unable to help themselves? People who have been diagnosed with certain types of incurable cancers can suffer a slow agonizing death. Patients who suffer from an incurable cancer experience endless periods of vomiting, coughing, extreme pain and lose control of their bodily functions (Messerli, J., 2011). There is a woman whose name is Cody Curtis, and she was diagnosed with Cholangicarcinoma in December of 2007. Cholangicarcinoma is a type of cancer that runs through the bile of a person’s liver. Cody’s cancer traveled to her lungs and lymph nodes after having her first surgery and... [continues]
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