A rightful death has always had controversy in how it was defined. As time and medical procedures and technology have improved the thoughts of a rightful death have been updated. As of now, a ‘rightful death’ is seen as a new protocol for physician assisted-suicide. The right to assisted suicide is a sensitive topic that is contradicted throughout the United States. There are debates in which it is argued in whether a dying patient has the right to rely on a doctor to determine if they should end their life or not. Some people may be against it because of religious and moral reasons. Others may be for it because of their respect towards the happiness and pain the person may feel. As physicians are also contradicting the issue as they differ where the line is placed upon on how it separates the relief of dying and committing murder. For many, the main concern with assisted suicide is the face of the terminal ill not being able to be mentally stable to decide whether or not it is right for them to commit suicide. Many terminally ill patients who are in the final stages of their lives have requested doctors to aid them in exercising active euthanasia. When people see the word euthanasia, they see the meaning of the word in two different lights. Euthanasia for some carries a negative connotation; it is the same as murder. For others, however, euthanasia is the act of putting someone to death painlessly, or allowing a person suffering from an incurable and painful disease or condition to die by withholding extreme medical measures. But after studying both sides of the issue, a compassionate individual must conclude that competent terminal patients should be given the right to assisted suicide in order to end their suffering, reduce the damaging financial effects of hospital care on their families, and preserve the individual right of people to determine their own fate.
The main underlying issue at hand that has caused much controversy over this question, is the societal construct which has been implemented in much of the western world, which encourages people to fear death and believe that life should be prolonged as much as possible. At the opposing end, the idea of physician assisted-suicide seems like a plausible answer to those who are terminally ill, in comas or have no will to keep on living.
One of the main arguments for the legalization of physician assisted-suicide is that it gives the freedom of choice to those who no longer wish to prolong their life. The people I speak of are usually people who are no longer alive but simply living. The people who are in immeasurable pain, and wish more than anything to put an end to their misery, knowing very well that that would also mean putting an end to their lives. These people are people faced with terminal illnesses, incurable and painful diseases, and those who have reached old age and no longer wish to keep aging. Researchers on the topic such as Robert H. Blank and Mark F. Miluka have provided valuable insight on the pros of physician-assisted suicide. Blank, for example, agrees that physician-assisted suicide should be legalized, “We conclude that legalization of physician-assisted suicide…is the policy best able to respond to patients’ needs and to protect vulnerable people” (Blank 191). Blank, after extensive research, has concluded, that the best way to help these people who are in immense pain and endure tremendous suffering or simply who no longer have a will to live, is to allow them to decide for themselves if they want to keep living or not.
However, while physician assisted-suicide may help those who are terminally ill and no longer wish to live, it also has the potential to harm others. The other people I speak of who could potentially be harmed if this is legalized, are people who may be faced with serious mental issues who may not be able to grasp the full range of this concept. Others affected would be people who lack power over their own lives, people such as babies or those in a coma. Another argument against physician assisted-suicide arises from the constitution and its amendments. Mikula asserts, “The history of the law's treatment of assisted suicide in this country has been and continues to be one of the rejections of nearly all efforts to permit it. That being the case, our decisions lead us to conclude that the asserted 'right' to assistance in committing suicide is not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause"(Mikula). Therefore, now the argument takes a turn from an ethical standpoint from a legal and political standpoint. With new questions arising, pertaining to whether or not the constitution would have to be ratified if physician assisted-suicide became completely legal.
Another point of view that is worth noting when seeking to find an answer to this question, is that of those physicians who are assisting the patients in suicide. There seems to be intertwining ideas and opinions about the reasoning they believe is behind the patients choice to end their life. However, “Most respondents thought that some patients might request physician-assisted suicide because of concern about being a burden to others (93 percent) or financial pressure (83 percent)” (Journal of Medicine). This point is worth noting due to the fact, that these physicians have the final say and are in a way the final barrier between life and death for those patients who seek to end their lives. Medical technology today has achieved remarkable feats in prolonging the lives of human beings. Respirators can support a patient’s failing lungs and medicines can sustain that patient’s physiological processes. For those patients who have a realistic chance of surviving an illness or accident, medical technology is science’s greatest gift to mankind. For the terminally ill, however, it is just a means of prolonging suffering. Medical technology today has achieved remarkable feats in prolonging the lives of human beings. Respirators can support a patient’s failing lungs and medicines can sustain that patient’s physiological processes. For those patients who have a realistic chance of surviving an illness or accident, medical technology is science’s greatest gift to mankind. For the terminally ill, however, it is just a means of prolonging suffering.
Medical technology today has achieved remarkable feats in prolonging the lives of human beings. Respirators can support a patient’s failing lungs and medicines can sustain that patient’s physiological processes. For those patients who have a realistic chance of surviving an illness or accident, medical technology is science’s greatest gift to mankind. For the terminally ill, however, it is just a means of prolonging suffering. Medicine is supposed to alleviate the suffering that a patient undergoes. Yet the only thing that medical technology does for a dying patient is given that patient more pain and agony day after day. Some terminal patients in the past have gone to their doctors and asked for a final medication that would take all the pain away— lethal drugs. For example, as Ronald Dworkin recounts, Lillian Boyes, an English woman who was suffering from a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis, begged her doctor to assist her to die because she could no longer stand the pain (184). Another example is Dr. Ali Khalili, Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s twentieth patient. According to Kevorkian’s attorney, “[Dr. Khalili] was a pain specialist; he could get any kind of pain medication, but he came to Dr. Kevorkian. There are times when pain medication does not suffice”(qt. in Cotton 363). Terminally ill patients should have the right to assisted suicide because it is the best means for them to end the pain caused by an illness which no drug can cure. A competent terminal patient must have the option of assisted suicide because it is in the best interest of that person.
Further, a dying person’s physical suffering can be almost unbearable to that person’s immediate family. Medical technology has failed to save a loved one. But, successful or not, medicine has a high price attached to it. The cost is sometimes too much for the terminally ill’s family. A competent dying person has some knowledge of this, and with every day that he or she is kept alive, the hospital costs skyrocket. “The cost of maintaining [a dying person]. . . has been estimated as ranging from about two thousand to ten thousand dollars a month” (Dworkin 187). Human life is expensive, and in the hospital, there are only a few affluent terminal patients who can afford to prolong what life is left in them. As for the not-so-affluent patients, the cost of their lives is left to their families. Of course, most families do not consider the cost while the terminally ill loved-one is still alive. When that loved-one passes away, however, the family has to struggle with a huge hospital bill and are often subject to financial ruin. Most terminal patients want their death to be a peaceful one and with as much consolation as possible. Ronald Dworkin, the author of Life’s Dominion, says that “many people . . . want to save their relatives the expense of keeping them pointlessly alive . . .”(193). To leave the family in financial ruin is by no means a form of consolation. Those terminally ill patients who have accepted their imminent death cannot prevent their families from plunging into financial debt because they do not have the option of halting the medical bills from piling up. If terminal patients have the option of assisted suicide, they can ease their families’ financial burdens as well as their suffering.
Finally, many terminal patients want the right to assisted suicide because it is a means to endure their end without the unnecessary suffering and cost. Most, also, believe that the right to assisted suicide is an inherent right which does not have to be given to the individual. It is a liberty which cannot be denied because those who are dying might want to use this liberty as a way to pursue their happiness. Dr. Kevorkian’s attorney, Geoffrey N. Fieger, voices the absurdity of curbing the right to assisted suicide, saying that “a law which does not make anybody do anything, that gives people the right to decide, and prevents the state from prosecuting you for exercising your freedom not to suffer, violates somebody else’s constitutional rights is insane” (qt. in Cotton 364). Terminally ill patients should be allowed to die with dignity. Choosing the right to assisted suicide would be a final exercise of autonomy for the dying. They will not be seen as people who are waiting to die but as human beings making one final active choice in their lives. As Dworkin puts it, “whatever view we take about [euthanasia], we want the right to decide for ourselves . . .”(239).
Death seems to have become a new social taboo, one which many people are afraid to acknowledge. Rather than face the topic, people turn away from it, until it comes knocking on their door and they have no choice but to answer. However, at that point it is too late to speak about it, only tears are left to drown out the silence, “fear, denial, and doubts result in disorganization, which is a common systemic issue for families facing loss and death”(Rosen 69). One of the reasons many people follow through with assisted suicide is the lack of communication about death with loved ones or others. Of course, it is understandable that a person will not want to let go of someone they hold dear and love, however, shaming them for the path they have chosen to take is not the way to go about this conversation. This is yet another barrier that those seeking to legalize physician assisted-suicide face loved ones who cannot bear to let them go and refuse to understand their decision. This also leads back to the idea of those who are seeking physician assisted-suicide to become viewed as weak and sometimes cowards.
The rights to live and how to die that I have suggested should be legal are not necessarily as hard as one may make it seem. Although there may be cases in which people are mentally unstable and do not have the right state of mind to choose whether or not they should live, it simply allows the person to have actual control of the one thing that is important to them at heart (their death), and many people do not realize how important it truly is. According to physicians that are the ones putting an end to these people misery.