Should the Legalization of Assisted Suicide Continue in the US
Assisted suicide is one of the most popular legal and medical ethical dilemmas. For decades, clinicians and stakeholders in law have argued for and against the legalization of assisted suicide. Assisted suicide, also referred to as death with dignity or euthanasia, is a practice of prescribing lethal medications to a terminally ill patient to relieve them from the pain and suffering connected to the illness (Keown 26). Where legal, this practice is often done at the patient’s request. Assisted suicide is legal in some American states, but it remains a debate in a majority of states (Emanuel 80). There have been questions over the ethics of allowing medical professionals to legally end their patients’ lives at the patients’ request. However, after evaluating the pros and cons of euthanasia, the pros seem to overpower the cons. The legalization of assisted suicide should continue in the United States because it demonstrates respect for patient autonomy, relieves terminally ill patients from suffering, and enhances safe medical practice.
Assisted suicide should be legalized because it respects patient autonomy. All patients have a right to governance over their actions. This means that people have a right to choose the medical interventions that they would like to be used on them and the ones to forego. Autonomy is one of the four main principles of medical ethics. Physicians and other healthcare professionals are required to, above all, respect the patient’s autonomy (Karlsson, Milberg, and Strang 36). Regardless of what the health care professional believes to be right, they are supposed to allow the patient to choose the interventions that they want. The role of the health care professional in this case is to disclose all important information that will assist the patient in making their decision (38). Euthanasia is a medical intervention that patients need to be allowed to choose. A person suffering from a terminal illness should have the ability to forego the pain and suffering that comes before death. There should not be any legislation that makes it impossible for people to forego their autonomy when it comes to choosing death without suffering.
Assisted suicide should be legalized because it relieves the patients of pain and suffering. This practice is also referred to as death with dignity because it allows patients to protect their dignity by dying before their illnesses reduce their ability to use a lot of their human functions. Relieving pain and suffering has been one of the main goals of medicine since its inception. Doctors are supposed to use interventions that have the least possible pain and suffering on a patient (Jordan 12). Therefore, assisted suicide can be considered as a compassionate and humane act. For instance, a person who has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) experiences a gradual loss in muscle functionality. This problem persists to a point where the patient cannot breathe due to the inability of the muscles in the lungs to function well enough to allow respiration. If such a patient chooses assisted death, rather than experiencing pain while waiting for their body to gradually lose the ability to breathe, they should be allowed to do so. Assisted death should be allowed for such patients who need to skip to the inevitable part of their illness, which is death.
Medical practitioners in support of legalized assisted death have also supported it as a safe medical practice. Aiding patients to safely die is perceived as a way of preventing other forms of suicide. Suicide is common in terminally ill patients (Dugdale, Lerner, and Callahan 787). An estimated 18.6% of terminally ill patients contemplate suicide (Choy 265). A large number of these people end up committing suicide to save themselves from the suffering associated with the terminal illness. For instance, depression is highly prevalent in cancer patients. People who have been diagnosed with cancer have a high risk of being suicidal because of the feelings of hopelessness, demoralization, excessive pain, and being a burden to others (Frati 28). If the death of such a patient is inevitable, it is safer to have a medical professional help them to safely end their lives rather than allowing them to commit suicide using other strategies.
However, many people have been against assisted suicide, causing the long debate that has prevented many states from legalizing this practice. One of the main arguments against assisted suicide is respect for the value of human life. People against assisted suicide believe that no man should have the right to determine which life is valuable and which is not (Snijdewind et al. 1127). Assisted suicide is believed to be based on the assumption that the lives of people who are suffering from a terminal illness are less valuable than those of healthier people. This argument is also based on religious beliefs. The Christian worldview of human life is that God is the only giver and taker of life. Life is so valuable that no human being, for whatever reason, should be allowed to end a life (Beville 56). However, this argument disregards the importance of quality of life. The quality of life is as important as life itself. Life is valuable, but many people also place value on the quality of the said life. If a person wants to forego a life with a lot of pain and suffering and with no dignity, then their decisions need not be disregarded since the quality of life is important.
Some have argued against assisted suicide because it could promote patient coercion. Although patients have the autonomy to choose what they believe is best for their health, their decisions are highly affected by the advice they get from their doctors. If assisted suicide is made legal, there is a possibility that patients may be pushed to choose suicide when they would not have individually made that choice. This argument may be wildly inaccurate since the legalization of assisted suicide does not imply ease in performing the act. In American states and countries where assisted suicide is legalized, there are strict procedures to follow before assisted death is performed. One of the common requirements for euthanasia include the following: the death of the patient should be inevitable, the patient should be in the right state of mind to make a decision regarding euthanasia, and the patient should be given a reasonable amount of time to contemplate the decision and decide whether or not they would like to be assisted to die. Such provisions and others that have been put in place make it hard for medical practitioners to force a patient into choosing assisted death.
There is also a likelihood that people may choose assisted suicide because of other reasons other than terminal illness. Many people who are terminally ill also have other underlying conditions that may push them to suicide. For instance, a lot of patients may also have depression, which may be the real reason for their choice of assisted suicide (Frati 28). This argument can be refuted by the fact that euthanasia statistics have remained relatively consistent over time. Even in states where this practice was legalized, people did not use it as an excuse for suicide when having an underlying condition (Albert-Lorincz 14). Besides, the fact that there are strict procedures to be followed before assisted suicide is done makes it less likely for people to misuse the legalization of assisted suicide.
In conclusion, it is important for assisted suicide to be legalized in American states. This practice would benefit a lot of terminally ill patients across the United States who are suffering from terminal illnesses and awaiting an inevitable natural death. Legalizing euthanasia is a way of respecting patient autonomy by allowing them to make a decision for their own health. Euthanasia is also a way to demonstrate compassion, as it helps a lot of patients prevent the pain and suffering that they will inevitably experience as they approach their death. Lastly, allowing assisted death in the United States will encourage safer medical practice as it will reduce the risks of patients with terminal illnesses committing suicide. The advantages of allowing this practice make it necessary for the government to eliminate the legislative barriers that currently prevent patients from making this choice.
Works Cited
Albert-Lorincz, Csanad. “Pros and cons of euthanasia. A qualitative study.” Revista Romana de Bioetica 13.3 (2015).
Beville, Kieran. DYING TO KILL: A Christian Perspective on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. Christian Publishing House, 2014.
Choy, C. H. “Suicide in palliative care setting.” Annals of palliative medicine 6.Suppl 2 (2017): S264-S265.
Dugdale, Lydia S., Barron H. Lerner, and Daniel Callahan. “Focus: Death: Pros and Cons of Physician Aid in Dying.” The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 92.4 (2019): 747.
Emanuel, Ezekiel J., et al. “Attitudes and practices of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the United States, Canada, and Europe.” Jama 316.1 (2016): 79-90.
Frati, Paola, et al. “Assisted suicide in the care of mentally ill patients: The Lucio Magri’s case.” Journal of forensic and legal medicine 21 (2014): 26-30.
Jordan, Madeline. “The Ethical Considerations of Physician-assisted Suicide.” Dialogue & Nexus 4.1 (2017): 12.
Karlsson, Marit, Anna Milberg, and Peter Strang. “Dying cancer patients’ own opinions on euthanasia: an expression of autonomy? A qualitative study.” Palliative medicine 26.1 (2012): 34-42.
Keown, John. Euthanasia, ethics, and public policy: an argument against legalization. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Snijdewind, Marianne C., et al. “Complexities in euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide as perceived by Dutch physicians and patients’ relatives.” Journal of pain and symptom management 48.6 (2014): 1125-1134.
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
We’ll write everything from scratch
Question 
A research paper is more than the sum of your sources, more than a collection of different pieces of information, and more than a literature review in a field. A research paper analyzes perspectives and argues a point. Your finished paper should present your thinking supported by others’ ideas and information. In other words, your research paper is an expanded essay presenting your evaluation, interpretation, and argument.
Should the Legalization of Assisted Suicide Continue in the US
Research at least ten sources and compose a paper focusing on a specific aspect of a particular issue. Considering a research paper is also thesis-driven and supported by reliable sources, think of this paper as entering a conversation from a well-informed standpoint.
General guidelines:
From your topic below, It is best to avoid moral aspects of the topic since they do not support logical discussion.
Perform effective and thorough research. Make sure to perform a significant amount of exploration before fully committing to a topic. This is important because you need to make sure there are enough credible sources to support your essay (Refer to RFW 50 and 52).
Analyze the topic by breaking it down into pieces to inspect and understand it. Also, as an academic, you do research to become particularly knowledgeable on a topic so that you can reconstruct and present the parts of the topic from your own perspective.
Focus your research and answer the topic question presented. The answer to this question is the basis of your working thesis. Remember that the thesis may change slightly as you further investigate and compose your essay. The thesis is the driving point of your argument.
Provide necessary background information. Early in the essay, provide a brief overview of your topic for clarification of your argument. Consider that the reader knows little about your topic.
Focus on organization and transitions. While organization and transitions are important in any type of essay, they are particularly important in a research paper because they involve multiple reasons and evidence to support the overall thesis. The paper should explain and support several reasons why the argument is valid as well as explain and refute several opposing arguments.
Lastly, this is a formal and objective essay, and the use of I, you, us, we, or personal anecdotes is not appropriate.