Immanuel Kant Essay: Assisted Suicide As A Universal Law

Assisted suicide
"To authorize one's self to take one's own life, is to attempt to withdraw from all obligation" (Immanuel Kant). A widely accepted view in the ethical world where many agree, as do I, but with the topic of assisted suicide it cannot be measured with the same absoluteness to Kant's law. The End of Life Option Act, recently signed into law in California, challenges Kant's views on suicide because it allows physicians to write lethal prescriptions for terminally ill patients, although, the patients have the option to take it when they feel they are no longer experiencing "quality of life" due to their terminal illness. The End of Life Option Act is something I agree with, because this law can be incorporated as a universal law in which people also agree with. Furthermore, this universal law can be accepted because it saves the autonomy of the caregivers, also, someone with a terminal illness faces a
For instance I will use my three examples to prove this right. With the first example, a caregiver for someone with a terminal illness can lose their autonomy due to the amount of stress and time they must spend with their patient. Second, someone with a terminal illness is not "withdrawing from all obligations" because they are simply relieving themselves from an inevitable pain to themselves. Third, a terminally ill patient save the suffering of their loved ones with the End of Life Option Act because it saves a great amount of stress for the family after the patient is gone and also prevents using the loved ones as a mere means to limited survival. As one can see, assisted suicide shouldn’t be measured with total absoluteness where the ill patient becomes a slave to one self but instead seen a way for the terminally ill patients to liberate themselves from an inevitable