Everyone in American should have a choice. That should go for almost everything. People should get to choose how they want to die with certain rules of course. Assisted suicide means the suicide of a patient suffering from an incurable disease, effected by the taking of lethal drugs provided by a doctor for this purpose. People should have the right to this?
With Assisted suicide people can choose if they want to live or die. They get to choose, Well kinda. There are some rules that should be made if this is legal. If a doctor were to offer assisted suicide to a patient. That doctor should have done everything in their power to heal the patient first. “Assisted suicide is a controversial medical and ethical issue based on the question of whether, in certain situations, medical practitioners should be allowed to help patients actively determine the time and circumstances of their death”(stingl). If a patient has a physical injury that causes them extreme amounts of pain and they do not want to live anymore. They could choose to get a lethal drug. “Patients facing the slow progression of a fatal disease or the prognosis of living for years with incurable pain would be able to end their lives with dignity before their suffering became unbearable”(Issitt). Over twenty% of physicians receive requests for assisted suicide and between five and twenty asked will honor the request.
In 1991 was when congress allowed DNR to be signed. A do-not-resuscitate order, or DNR order, is a medical order written by a doctor. When a patient signs a DNR their doctors has not respect their wishes even if they disagree. If a patient starts to fat lines or needs CPR. Physicians will not give CPR or do anything in their power to help the patient, if they have a DNR signed. “There are different forms of assisted suicide like physician can instruct the best method for suicide, a substance that will cause death, DNR, and physicians removes life-support or des not do everything to prolong life”(Issitt). With removing life-support most of the time family members make that choice because the patient is not able to make the choice.
Less than half of America allow assisted suicide. Nine out of the fifty states has assisted suicide legalized. “Oregon became the first state to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill, mentally competent adults in 1994, followed by Washington and Vermont. The Montana Supreme Court has ruled that physicians may prescribe lethal drugs to the competent terminally ill”(Richardson). In December 2008, Montana’s district court ruled that the state homicide laws restricted rights to terminally ill patients. In most states euthanasia and assisted suicide are prohited and felony charges will be carried out. Also, it is illegal for doctors to give advice of how to commit suicide. Pew Research Center polls conducted that sixty percent of Americans believe people should have the right to commit suicide with certain conditions, such as suffering with great pain without improvements.
In conclusion, everyone should get to choose if they want to go down the path of assisted suicide. Most states do not have assisted suicide legalize. This should be changed so patients suffering with extreme amounts of pain can choose to keep living.