My Father's Death" by Susan Wolf... What Would You Do?

Physician-assisted suicide is a patient's last wish after trying all other medical alternatives to stay alive. This procedure requires the patient to be physically capable of self-administrating of swallowing the lethal drug. Palliative care helps manage symptoms, providing comfort, helping the patient as they come to the end of their life, and helping the family and friends who are grieving. The main goal of palliative care is to relieve pain and provide comfort at the end of life. Physician-assisted death makes sense as a last result only if excellent palliative care is already being provided and the patient is still suffering. What I find interesting is a statement, found in two different articles; they read that the physician has to admit to participation to a crime and runs the risk of prosecution. I do not understand why the physician has to be treated like a criminal for fulfilling a dying patient's last wish to end their hard suffering pain, while the patient and physician both know the patient is going to die ether way.

In the article "Confronting Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: My Father's Death" by Susan Wolf. I would also have to reconsider my objections to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia. Having to partake or hear of helping a loved one speed up their death to end their pain and suffering, is extremely difficult and not taken lightly, but it is also hard to watch a love one suffer and die slowly in pain. Even though, I agree with physician-assisted death to end suffering to a dying patient, a father is the most important person in most people's lives, it is hard enough to accept the fact that the person you love the most is on his dying bed in pain and suffering, and there is nothing you (as a daughter) can do about this fact. As your feeling this pain in you hart, you are faced with important questions and you cannot think clearly all you can think of is losing your daddy. I am thankful for this discussion; it gives me some ideas before I have to face losing my dad which is my greatest fear. The idea is to finish my dad's will and his

Living Will. Also, when that terrible day does come, if my father is struggling in pain to hold on and the doctors and myself know for a fact there is no hope what so ever, I will assure him that it is okay to pass away if he is ready and I would not object to any decisions he makes, including speeding his death up.

In the first paragraph Wolf writes about her father challenging her views on the end-of-life care. He insisted that he would want to fight for his life; he said that he wanted "everything" even in a vegetative state (Wolf, 2008 para 1). Wolf knowing her father's wishes while he was in good health and in the right state of mind, had impact on her objection to her father's request for the lethal drug that would speed up his death process. She knew what he wanted by their conversations when he was well and she possibly objected to the physician- assisted suicide, because she knew that he may or may not be in his right state of mind in the means of he really does not want the lethal medication. I would have to go by my father's wishes when he had a sound state of mind. Shortly after the massive bleeding and the doctors not knowing what the cause for the bleeding he requested to stop the tube feedings and IV hydration and ask the physician if they could accelerate his process of death on reflex Wolf replies "NO". She wrote that "she knew she needed to rethink her "no". She thought to herself no jurisdiction in the United States allows euthanasia and even if they did allow such practice, he would be unable to swallow the lethal medication. As Wolf sees the sings of her father suffering in trying to hold on, she remembers the rabbi's saying "the ones we love most may need permission to leave us, to die" (Wolf 2008). Wolf's father passed minutes after she insures him it is okay to go.

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