Controversial Importance of Physician Assisted Suicide
Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) is generally known as a type of euthanasia that corresponds to the practice of a physician or other health care provider administering a deadly dose of medicine that poisons a willing terminally ill patient. PAS became controversial among medical practitioners, the public, and the international community since its discovery in the 17th century. Most countries currently outlaw PAS. However, patients in specific parts of the United States and other countries call for change. In physician assisted suicide there are plenty pros and cons, however in this essay we will discuss the controversy regarding the importance of PAS in the futures of people with terminal illnesses and whether it is beneficial to all parties involved. Some claim that the idea of PAS is either impractical or ethical. Others argue that PAS allows a patient to die in dignity. An influential body of research argues for physician-assisted suicide legalization since it is cost-effective, prevents potential abuse of patients by physicians, has no potential for misuse, and improves the quality of their inevitable last seconds.
Physician-assisted suicide financially advantages all parties. When someone is terminally ill, they leave consequential costs to their family and drain the hospitals of their already limited supplies. A professor at the University of Melbourne, named Andrew Walter, declared that “one out of every four Medicare dollars, more than $125 billion, is spent on services for the 5% of beneficiaries in their last year of life. In fact, for 40% of families, the bill is too high for them to pay it.” Patients frequently suffer through pointless and draining treatments that endanger their health. Ian Dowbiggen, professor at the University of Toronto and author of The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America, dedicated his life to studying terminal care and its relations to ethics. He wrote that “when patients have a terminal illness, at some point more disease treatment doesn't equal better care.” The excessive treatment renders useless because the prolongation of a patient's life is to such an extent. The unnecessary treatment not only drains the family but the hospital. A survey explained in William Clark’s report, Modeling Hospital Discharge and Placement Decision Making had over one hundred executives in hospitals explain their lavish amounts of debt. Clark reported that “36% say [of hospital executives] bad debt adds up to over $10 million ... In 2009, costs [for the hospital] to maintain someone in an ICU reached up to $10,000 per day.” Hospitals dive headfirst into a disturbing amount of debt, especially when managing patients for their end-of-life care. Hospitals stay in ultimate debt and consistently spend increasing amounts on inevitably-ill patients, especially when the family is incapable of satisfying the bill. Although some families have Medicare, the invoice often stays financially destructive. Families often come across the question if prolonging a terrible life is worth the financial hurricane. The patient personally needs to evaluate if they desire to endure. Otherwise, the hospital and family are paying bills for no valued service.
Physician-Assisted suicide prevents possibilities of abuse while defending individual and mortal rights. Carolyn Roberts, a bachelor of medicine and surgery and author, published a book including a study showing the contrast in the number of illegal PAS procedures implemented in the Netherlands, which was also the leading country to approve of PAS. There were 1.7% of terminally ill patients who died from PAS in 1971. However, the Netherlands legalized PAS in 2001, thirty years after 1971. Roberts concluded that over twenty-five hundred patients died illegally. Although the Netherlands prohibited PAS at that time, doctors administered it anyway. After four years since its legalization, there was a predicted sharp increase in PAS. In 2005, less than half a percent of all treatments proceeded without explicit permission; this is an acute 75% decrease, especially considering the brief period. A country can not ethically or morally promise the complete dismissal of illegalities. The legalization gave sufferers and their families the option to take charge. PAS gives physicians a consensual way to use a patient's input to proceed in the direction the patient wants. For such a monumental moment of death, the sufferer's thoughts are of the utmost value.
Contrasting the Netherlands, the United States is not in full agreement with PAS. The United States' government legalized PAS in strictly nine states and the district of Columbia. All of the nine specific states follow the nearly-similar rules regarding PAS. The law includes the restriction of the patient's age, legal residency, a terminally-ill diagnosis that the patient will die in less than six months. Oregon passed the Death With Dignity Act Measure 16 as soon as 1995. The rules followed the lines of, “requires that the individual has been diagnosed with a terminal illness by the attending physician and a consulting physician; that the request for medication to end one's life must be made voluntarily and must be made orally and in writing; that the prescription for medication cannot be made sooner than 15 days after the oral request is made, nor more than 48 hours after the written request is received, and not until after the physician allows the client to rescind their request for the medication.” PAS requires three requests coming from three different physicians. Specifically, it requires two oral requests from the patient to the physician, requested at least fifteen days apart, and a single written request. The extensivity ensures that the patient is positive that PAS is the best decision for them. The patient has to be mentally sane and competent to decide healthily about their future. The fifteen day waiting period combined with the variety of forms of requests validates the desire for PAS. The PAS law protects safety because it inhibits decision-making without sincerer thought, thus increasing control of their own life. The law also goes into how the mental state of the patient. Although some argue that suicidal patients can somehow still abuse PAS, the law is purposely comprehensive to prevent such a thing. The patient needs to be in a healthy mental state. If the psychological stability test turns out with the patient suffering from any mental disorder, the physician mandates the patient to attend counseling. A counselor's belief that the individual's mental disorder clouds their judgment will immediately deny the PAS request. The clause especially prevents someone with suicidal tendencies to request PAS; this guarantees that the patient is in the right mindset. When a patient's mind is mentally able, they retain clear decision-making ability by reducing distractions.
Physician-Assisted suicide advances the life quality of weakening patients, their families, and their friends. An interview conducted by Stephan Weiss questioned a thousand terminally ill patients from random states across the United States. Half of the patients described severe discomfort. Coming as a shock, only twenty percent of them asked for a pain specialist. When Weiss asked why the patients in pain did not want more therapy or medication to alleviate their torture, the most common answers were from the dislike of side effects, fear of addiction, and dislike to the addition of drugs. If intense chronic pain fills someone's terminal life the continuation often loses value. A common worry about PAS is that it would destroy the close lives of a patient. A study by Nikkie B. Swarte suggests otherwise. She gathered 189 family and friend members to someone who passed away to PAS and 316 bereaved family and friends of someone who died a natural death. The bereaved members of someone who died of PAS showed fewer symptoms of trauma and grief compared to the close ones of someone who died a natural death. The loved ones of the patients who died from PAS had a better ability to cope because they had more time to mourn. They were able to make the last moments count. PAS gave them the gift of valuing ultimate moments and giving them the possibility of leaving loved ones on a good note. PAS also prevents a patient's loved ones from seeing them in more critical pain during their last moments. Terminally-ill patients had the unparalleled ability to end their life on their terms. PAS gave one the most humane and compassionate choice during such an emotional time. The right to live is a fundamental human right, one that should be in control of the patient in question.
Although many countries outlawed physician-assisted suicide (PAS), people across the world demand change for terminally-ill patients. PAS's controversiality brings worldwide attention, and all parties are continuing the conversation. Severely incompetent patients often are unfit to benefit from further life sustenance. Terminally-ill patients often find the operations too burdensome for the same result. When the repentance of treatment has no benefit to the patient themselves, patients often see their lives as not worth living and therefore not worth prolonging. In cases like these, coming with thousands per year across the United States, Physician-Assisted Suicide is the best for the patient, simultaneously aligning with the responsibility of care to protect their wishes. Death understandably becomes morally just for the patient. Understanding all sides is essential, especially regarding such a delicate topic. Countless research consistently suggests that physician-assisted suicide deserves to be a lawful medical procedure for those that qualify due to being cost-effective, limits possible abuse, and enhances the quality of life.
