Bower 1
Steven Bower
Professor Maguire
ENGL 101
11 February 2018
Death is a Right
The topic on whether U.S. citizens have the right to physician-assisted suicide has been
debated for decades and it doesn’t seem to be easing up anytime soon. Physician-assisted suicide
is not only a legal issue, but also a moral issue, as it opposes religious beliefs. It’s hard to argue
against morals, as they differ person to person and there is not a universal code of morals which
every person abides by. However, the legal aspect can be discussed as there are facts, rather than
opinions, to support each side. In most states, it is illegal for a physician to aid competent
terminally ill patients in dictating when they will die, which needs to change. A competent
terminally ill patient should be able to choose when they die with the help of a physician, as it
would prevent the patient from unnecessary suffering as well as alleviate his/her family from the
outrageous financial troubles that follows having a loved one be terminally ill.
Why are terminally ill patients forced to suffer any more than they need to? Is knowing
they have an incurable disease not enough? As of now, outside of California, Montana, Oregon,
Washington, and Vermont, a terminally ill patient is forced to fight and suffer through an
unwinnable battle. Medicine has made strides through the decades of this debate, but there are
still diseases that cannot be cured. There have been developments to help prolong the life of
those who have it, but often the patient is not truly living. Rather, a medical machine is
impersonating how a human body would function. Through this, the patient suffers longer than
he/she would have if they let the disease run its normal course, which is already more than a
Bower 2
patient should endure. On the other hand, advances in medicine now presents the opportunity to
a painless death for these patients in which they dictate when they die. The disease no longer gets
to control when and how the patient dies. At its roots, medicine is made to help those in pain.
What common practice currently does is the opposite of that as it prolongs the pain, and to make
matters worse, they have the resources to supply the real medicine to patients but are not legally
able to. This act tiptoes the line of being medical malpractice, as it is defined by the American
Board of Professional Liability Attorneys as, “when a hospital, doctor, or other health care
professional, through a negligent act or omission, causes an injury to a patient”. The physician
does not necessarily cause injury, but prolonging suffering seems equally as damaging as an
injury to a patient. It is a competent terminally ill patient’s right to assisted-physician suicide as
it prevents unnecessary suffering.
