Assisted Suicide Arguments Against Euthanasia

The concept of intentionally ending a life through assisted suicide or euthanasia is a controversial topic. There are many moral, practical, and religious arguments either for or against these acts, making it difficult to find any easy answers to these issues. There are a variety of perspectives on euthanasia and assisted suicide that have developed and have been put into policies in some states or countries. This paper will explore what is meant by euthanasia and assisted suicide, some of the arguments for and against intentionally ending a life, and my own values and beliefs surrounding these issues. Assisted suicide and euthanasia are distinguished by who is acting to end the life and what is the intention of ending the life. Assisted suicide is when an individual deliberately chooses to end their own life, differentiated from the general act of suicide by the fact that a second individual is deliberately cooperating to provide the means. It is important to emphasize that the person herself is taking the action to end her life, whether the means are by firearm, injection, or medication. This means that not only is no one else’s finger on the trigger, but also assumes that no one has forced the person to take this action. Thus, the individual agency is a defining
This means that the person providing the means knows that what they are providing is going to be used to end a life. For example, the assistance portion cannot be composed of selling a gun to an individual with no knowledge of what it will be used for. When the means of ending the life is a medication prescribed by a doctor for this purpose, the act becomes known as physician-assisted suicide. When the assistance consists of a friend providing a weapon or family member providing a place for the act to occur, it is referred to as assisted