The Legalization of Assisted Suicide

Charles Davis

Persuasive Argument

March 16, 2005

The Legalization of Assisted Suicide

Oregon, the Netherlands, and Belgium are the only three jurisdictions in the world that permit assisted suicide and/or euthanasia. Oregon became the leader of the United States in assisted suicide, when the Oregon legislation passed the Death with Dignity Act in 1994, permitting "physicians to write prescriptions for a lethal dosage of medication to people with a terminal illness" (Department of Human Services). Oregon's act specifies who is permitted to assist a terminally ill patient in their time of choosing between life and death. But in the event that the United States as a country legalized assisted suicide, who would determine which patients qualified as terminally ill, and who would be permitted to "assist" these "terminally ill" patients? With questions still arising as to how and who on a topic such as assisted suicide, one can only prohibit the action until all aspects have been considered, eliminating confusion.

Assisted suicide is considered as someone providing another person with information, guidance, and/or means to take his/her own life. It is only considered to be physician assisted suicide (PAS) when a doctor is the provider. In many cases it is the physician who assists a current patient with their final wish of ending his/her life, but what about in other cases? In "Last Right," by Carrie Carmichael, Carmichael is asked by her best friend if she (Carmichael's friend) can jump out of Carmichael's window. While planning out the action, Carmichael began second-guessing, asking, "Could I sleep in my room after my friend plunged to her death from my window" (Carmichael, 98)? Not only was Carmichael considering her own emotions, and her own life, but she also considered how the action would affect others: "Nothing to break her fall. But nothing to protect pedestrians either" (Carmichael, 98). When a person who wishes to commit suicide pursues assisted suicide, not only is that person affecting themselves, but also those people around them. Carrie Carmichael's friend had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, prohibiting her from committing suicide via an over dosage of pills. Carmichael's friend wanted to commit the suicide before she had became too weak to perform the suicide on her own. In Carrie Carmichael's case, the "assistance" provided to her friend was limited because Carmichael drove her friend to the hotel where she would leap from the building, in opposition to those people who injected loved ones with medications or provided the medications for over dosage, only to be provoked to suffocate the family member in time of mishap. Although Carmichael's friend herself was too weak to drive herself anywhere, or take an overdose of medications, she placed her best friend in an uncomfortable position of making a decision to whether or not assist her friend. Now, not only is Carrie Carmichael haunted by the fact that the last time she saw her friend, she was driving her to her death, but the friend's family is confused as to why she would have chose to go that way. Carmichael's friend made a selfish decision, making her friends and loved ones suffer after the completion of her act, while she would no longer have anything to worry about.

Even in the event that the assistant to a suicide is a physician, physicians are also people with feelings, and many physicians are attached to their patients. Although those in favor of physician assisted suicide claim that it would provide compassion (PAS may be the compassionate response to unbearable suffering) and the respect for autonomy (competent persons should have the right to choose the time of their death), there is a major issue that would prevent a physician from assisting a patient with his/her suicide: the Hippocratic oath. The Hippocratic Oath states, "I will not administer poison to anyone where asked," and "Be of benefit, or at least do no harm" (University of Washington). The connotation of physicians and hospitals has become that of a positive nature: doctors give and restore lives, not take them. But in certain cases, doctors may sometimes feel like they are between a rock and a hard place; "should I give my patient what he/she desires, or should I do what I know to be morally correct?" In "A Question of Mercy," by Richard Selzer, Selzer speaks about a time when he was asked to assist a patient who was dying of HIV, in committing suicide. When ill man's partner asked Dr. Selzer if he would help, Selzer's original answer was, "NoÐ'...I'm trained to preserve life, not end it. It's not in me to do a think like that" (Selzer, 32). After Dr. Selzer investigates the body of the patient, R, he changes his mind. "I see that his anus is a great circular ulceration, raw and oozing blood. His buttocks are smeared with pus and liquid stool. With tenderness, L. [R's partner] bathes and dresses him in a fresh diaper" (Selzer, 36). After seeing the suffering that R is enduring, Dr. Selzer decides to assist him, but just as quickly as he changed his mind because of the visual of R, he can have a change of heart after R's death.

Another significant point that should be addressed when considering legalizing assisted suicide, is the question of who qualifies as "terminally ill?" In "The Ethics