Physician Assisted Suicide Research Paper

Physician-Assisted Suicide: Should It Be Legalized?
We have countless rights protected by the United States such as freedom of speech, due process of law, and freedom of religion to name a few. Most importantly, we have the right to life. In the opening of the Declaration of Independence, the very thing our country was founded upon, it is said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription). We do not, however, have the right to die. We have no right to end our own life, particularly by way of physician-assisted suicide. Although
A great example of this is in the case of Dr. Donald Low. Low was diagnosed with a brain stem tumor in February 2013 and died around six months later. In the days before his death he strongly advocated for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide; he told anyone who asked that he wished a doctor opposed to it could spend a day in his body. He was convinced that they would change their mind on the issue if they were able to feel what he was going through. He was quoted saying things such as that he wanted to know when he was going to die and that he wanted it to be as peaceful as possible. Only physician-assisted suicide can guarantee peace at time of death as the mixture of drugs used will essentially just put you to sleep. He was very worried about suffering as his illness progressed. Low did not want to go through pain or become paralyzed before dying. He didn’t want to have to depend on his family members in his last days and become a burden to them. He expressed that he felt physician-assisted suicide was the logical answer to his problems and that it seemed like it was the obvious choice if it ended suffering (Janus). In a similar case, the maker of the Dilbert comic strip, Scott Adams, expressed his wish for the legalization of physician
It really is nobody else’s choice but our own if we want to die. Taking into consideration what was said in the introduction about constitutional rights, we should all have the right to die because it is our own life. You may say that we had no choice in coming to life, why should we automatically have a say in when we die? But that is just it. We had no choice in being born, but once we are alive we should be completely in control of our own life. In the same article by Siebold, Judge Nan Nash is quoted saying, “This Court cannot envision a right more fundamental, more private or more integral to the liberty, safety and happiness of a New Mexican than the right of a competent, terminally ill patient to choose aid in dying” (Siebold). Nash is saying that of course a patient should be able to choose to end their suffering. There is no larger individual right than to be in control of your own