Physician Assisted Death Persuasive Speech

Imagine yourself sitting in the doctor’s office and you have just been diagnosed with a terrible, terminal disease. The doctors were very late catching it, and they tell you there is not much they can do for you other than make you comfortable for the last phase of your life. You do however; have a couple options for care. You can decide to fight it with medications anyway regardless of the phase of the illness, or you can accept the medications to make you comfortable until the end. Now fast forward a few months, and imagine yourself in hospice care. You are under round the clock supervision and medications to “ease your pain”.
What you are probably unaware of in this situation is that there was a third option on your list. But this third option is illegal in most states. It is physician-aided death.
According to the statistics taken in 2012 by the Hospice Care in America, approximately 1,059,000 hospice care patients go through their clinics each year in America, and approximately 38% of those patients are cancer
Next, we will look into why the law should be enacted nation wide.
First lets take a closer look into the concept of physician-aided death.
Physician aided death is when a medical professional helps a patient kill himself or herself. Examples of ways physician aided death is carried out are: If a doctor provides a lethal injection to be self administered by the patient or by providing the patient with a lethal dose of prescription drugs, of one form or anther, to be ingested (Taylor & Francis). Physician assisted death must be distinguished from euthanasia. This is the process in which the physician himself performs an act this is specifically intended to end the patient’s life (Synder and Sulmasy). Now that we understand what exactly physician aided death is, let look into some of the reasons as to why physician aided death even exist in the first