Physician-Assisted Suicide should be Legal

The article selected to support the argument that “physician-assisted suicide should be legal” is titled “Ethics and the Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide: An American College of Physicians Position Paper” which favors the “voluntary termination” of one’s own life by the “lethal substance with the direct assistance of a physician” (Snyder et al., 2017). The article suggests that assisted suicide comes up as a reason for alleviating pain so it is the moral duty of the physician who cares for their dying patients to assist them in their decision to choose to live or end their life. The authors defend the claim that physician-assisted suicide is the legal means to end an individual’s suffering whose life may or may not end soon.

Contrary to the article in support, the article “An Alternative to Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Conceptual and Moral Analysis” refutes the argument and argues in favor of alternatives including therapy and physician’s integration to manage the pain in order to heal and not to harm the patient (Gert et al., 2015). It suggests that physician support, psychotherapies, and palliative care to ease pain and increase comfort make the physician-assisted suicide approach unnecessary for people with severe illness. The authors state that physician-assisted suicide only benefits insurers and families of the patients who want to save their money but not the vulnerable life as a person’s care plan for a severe illness may cost tens of thousands of dollars and sometimes more in case of life-extending treatments.

However, I opine in favor of the patient’s right to autonomy and independence as every individual whether sick or healthy has the right to rightfully choose for the alleviation of their suffering and betterment of their life. Personally, I view the profession of Medicine as the profession of healing so those who are suffering from life-threatening diseases and may not die soon but somehow their pain is constant can opt for physician-assisted suicide to ease their final moments. However, it is necessary that physicians elevate human dignity and focus on the self-worth of each and every patient of themselves while deciding for the patients who are nearing their end.

References

Gert, B., Culver, C. M., & Clouser, K. D. (2015). An Alternative to Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Conceptual and Moral Analysis. In Physician Assisted Suicide. Routledge.

Snyder Sulmasy, L., Mueller, P. S., & Ethics, Professionalism and Human Rights Committee of the American College of Physicians*. (2017). Ethics and the legalization of physician-assisted suicide: an American College of Physicians position paper. Annals of Internal Medicine, 167(8), 576-578.