Assisted Suicide
In recent years, debate has intensified in the U.S. over the question of whether terminally ill people should have the legal right to obtain a doctor's help in ending their lives. The campaign to legalize assisted suicide, also called the right-to-die movement, has been under way since the 1970s but has gained steam in the 1990s. Proponents believe that mentally competent terminally ill people should be able to seek and receive a doctor's help to die. (Mental competence is a legal term that means that a person is of sound mind -- lucid and not suffering from any mental impairment or disturbance.) Assisted suicide is either barred by law or has been prohibited by court rulings in almost every state. Attempts to legalize assisted suicide through voter initiative were defeated in Washington State in 1991 and in California in 1992. More than 20 state legislatures have considered and defeated similar laws. Much like the controversy over abortion, the debate over assisted suicide is an emotionally charged one in which morality, medical ethics, and religion all play a part. Respected medical professionals and ethicists occupy positions on each side of the debate over assisted suicide. Both opponents and proponents of
Families, it is feared, may pressure patients to choose assisted suicide to avoid spending money that the patient otherwise could leave to the family. Hospitals are under economic constraints similar to managed care plans. The managed care plan has an incentive to hold down spending in either case: to save employers money or to retain a profit by spending less than the amount of premiums. Some have argued, that once traditional prohibitions and taboos are broken, society may be drawn down an unanticipated path towards acceptance of practices which, at the time of the initial breach, would be considered unacceptable. They may favor assisted suicide, particularly for older patients, in line with the beliefs of those like Daniel Callahan who think that the elderly have enjoyed enough of the resources of society and should make way for the young. For those people who believe that physician-assisted suicide should be their choice, they feel it should be legalized because: they don't want to go through the suffering caused by the terminal illness, they fear the loss of autonomy/independence, becoming a burden to their family and/or friends, and they also fear dying alone. Confronted with these financial pressures, physicians may turn to assisted suicide as a means of reducing the costs of caring for enrollees. "Euthanasia, Voluntary" from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The second type of economic objection to physician-assisted suicide focuses on the role of the patient's family. Physicians also may feel that they must represent the interests of society in encouraging patients to choose less costly alternatives. If and when a sufferer decides that life should end, legal euthanasia would provide the means for ending it, safely, without placing another person or group of persons in legal jeopardy. Professional societies will need to cooperate to develop practice guidelines for negotiating the necessary exchange of information in the physician-patient relationship, evaluating and treating the underlying reasons for requests for physician-assisted suicide, handling referrals and interactions among health care professionals, and addressing confi!dentiality and reimbursement issues.
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Acceptance Essays
