Imagine being twenty-nine years old, recently married, and ready to start a family, when one day you are sitting in a doctor's office, he comes in and delivers the news that you have grade 2 astrocytoma. A rare brain cancer that will require you to have a partial craniotomy and partial resection of your temporal lobe, and yet less then four months after those invasive procedures the cancer returns as a stage 4 glioblastoma and that same doctor gives you six months to live. This is exactly what happened to Brittany Maynard, a young women diagnosed with a terminal brain cancer. Maynard decided that she wanted to preserve her autonomy and save her family the pain and suffering of watching her become helpless. Maynard made the informed decision to move forward with physician assisted suicide. While physician assisted suicide is only legalized in five states this forced Maynard to move from California to Oregon to move forward with her plan. Physician assisted suicide is a positive and ethical treatment option for terminally ill patients and should be legalized in all fifty states. Assisted suicide should be legalized so that individuals in situations similar to Maynard's can make the decision to continue receiving medical treatment or to pass away on their own terms. 

Physician assisted suicide should be legalized in all fifty states as it is a positive ethical treatment for individuals who are terminally ill and do not want to live in pain, suffering, and lose their independence. A definition of physician assisted suicide from Merriam Webster Dictionary is, "Suicide by a patient facilitated by means (as a drug prescription) or by information (as an indication of a lethal dosage) provided by a physician aware of the patient's intent". In his article "Life Sustaining Treatment and Euthanasia", Dan Brock describes four of the most common end of life treatment options. Some terminally ill patients opt to sign a DNR, or Do Not Resuscitate. This goes into action in the event that a patient goes into cardiac arrest or becomes unresponsive. Others will undergo removal of artificial hydration and nutrition. Additionally, futile treatment is another form of assisted suicide where the patient opts to refuse treatment. Most common still is terminal sedation, where the physician provides a lethal injection or lethal dose of medication (Brock 1418).  According to a Gallup poll from May of 2015, "Nearly seven in 10 Americans (68%) say doctors should be legally allowed to assist terminally ill patients in committing suicide, up 10 percentage points from last year. More broadly, support for euthanasia has risen nearly 20 points in the last two years and stands at the highest level in more than a decade." (Gallup). If these are the statistics supporting physician assisted suicide, then there needs to be a call to action to fix this issue. These numbers are especially significant as they show not just support for legalization but a great increase in percentage in a small time frame. This indicates that the younger generations are supporting these ideas and want their voices to be heard. While five states currently legalize physician assisted suicide we need the United States government to enact a bill that will legalize the practice of physician assisted suicide in all fifty states. If a law went into action legalizing assisted suicide, then we would be giving the majority what they are asking for. Through looking at the patients right to die, preventing under the table assisted suicides, and other key arguments in relation to assisted suicide we can understand the benefits of legalizing physician assisted suicide as well as giving the majority of Americans what they want.

One of the largest arguments in support of legalization of physician assisted suicide is that individuals are entitled to the right to die. Terminally ill individuals should be entitled to any type of life sustaining or life ending treatment you feel is best for themselves. The article "Life Sustaining Treatment and Ethical Aspects" by Dan Brock, supports how sustaining life through invasive treatment is not always beneficial to the patient. Brock states "The capacity for self determination allows people to take control over responsibility for their lives" (Brock 1412). This is one of the most important aspects in the case of physician assisted suicide because in many instances the patient is more concerned about maintaining control rather then recovery if they are terminally ill. Brock also mentions how competent patients have the rights to decide if these alternative treatments like assisted suicide have benefits that out weigh the burdens (Brock 1412). For many terminally ill patients being able to have the right to die by physician assisted suicide is more appealing then having their family watch them waste away in a hospital bed. The following quote from Brittany Maynard proves just that, "There is not a cell in my body that is suicidal or that wants to die. I want to live. I wish there was a cure for my disease but there's not... My glioblastoma is going to kill me, and that's out of my control. I've discussed with many experts how I would die from it, and it's a terrible, terrible way to die. Being able to choose to go with dignity is less terrifying..." (Maynard para. 2). Brock uses the ideas of consent and informed decision making to show how physician assisted suicide can be beneficial to patients who are terminally ill as it provides them with feelings of self determination and autonomy. Additionally, bioethicist Margaret Battin, PhD, who has personal experience with assisted suicide after her husband chose to end treatment following a bicycle accident that left him quadriplegic discussed how physician assisted suicide is within ones' fundamental rights (Battin 3:15-4:39). Battin claims, "To restrict the right to die to the mere right to refuse unwanted medical treatment and so be allowed to die is an indefensible truncation of the basic right to choose one's death in accordance with one's own values." (Battin, 2482). The idea behind Brock and Battin's claims is that just because we can sustain life of terminally ill patients through respirators, ventilators, artificial nutrition, or endless amounts of pain killers does not mean we should if it is against the patients wishes and beliefs. 

Further more, physician assisted suicide should be legalized in all fifty states is to prevent physician assisted suicide from going on under the table. The truth of the matter is that hundreds of doctors help their terminally ill patients hasten their death with out it being legal. A CNN article by April Dumbosky, "What Remains Unsaid About Assisted Suicide" discusses the difficulty of these "under the table" procedures. The article tells how many patients ask for help in speeding up their death and how all doctors can do is to hint at how to go about it. Dumbosky describes how doctors and nurses want to help these terminally ill patients but want to stay out of legal trouble. She uses experiences from real families to tell about their experiences of doctors speaking in "code" regarding their options for assisted suicide, leaving them confused (Dumbosky para. 2). This indicates how not only are these cases hard on patients but on the physicians who desperately want to help their patients as well.

 One case of an under the table suicide was involving Hope Arnold and J.D. Falk. Falk was being discharged from the hospital into hospice when a doctor treating her husband gave Arnold a vile of morphine. When Arnold handed it back to the doctor he simply told her for the second time "you might need it" (Dumbosky para.7). It wasn't until later that evening that she realized the doctor had provided the morphine in the event that Falk wanted to overdose. It is situations such as these where physician assisted suicide needs to be legalized so that this grey area of doctors and nurses speaking in euphemisms for hastening death can end. According to the CNN article "Just over three percent of US doctors said that they have written a prescription for life ending medication" (Dumbosky para.18). This information was found after the results of an anonymous survey from the New England Journal of Medicine. If this is the case that three percent of doctors provided live ending prescriptions in addition to the five percent that admitted they had provided a patient with lethal injection, then assisted suicide needs to be legalized. Legalization would lead to each of these procedures being better regulated in terms of how medication is prescribed and distributed to patients as well as giving all patients an equal opportunity for an assisted death. Better regulation would be in best interest of the doctors and patients as insurance can help protect both parties in this situation. Overall, legalization would lead to better regulation, safer procedures, and better protection against insurance for patients and doctors.

Contrary to popular belief physician assisted suicide can be interpreted to be in accordance with the Hippocratic oath. The oath reads, "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asks for it, nor will I make a suggestion to that effect." (Tyson para. 1). While this statement may be true according to Joshua Dressler, author of "Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide", "The Hippocratic oath explicitly prohibited doctors from giving their patients poisons to end life and thus, traditionally, euthanasia and assisted suicide have not been considered legitimate medical acts" Dressler explains that if assisted suicide were to become legal then hastening death in an ethical manner would no longer be a criminal act but would be seen as a legitimate way to treat a patient, which would shift the traditional ethics of the medical field (Dressler 642). While this more recent interpretation may cause a dramatic change in the way medicine is practiced, it is necessary in adapting to the way society views the practice of physician assisted suicide today. The idea of the Hippocratic oath is to have doctors take a vow of healing and swear to never harm a patient. If this were the case the doctor would be doing no harm to the patient with assisted suicide. Furthermore, if the Hippocratic oath states a doctor will do no harm, then a doctor should be able to treat a terminally ill patient by means of assisted suicide as they are simply easing the patients pain and suffering. Another article from the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, discussing physician assisted suicide and euthanasia points out, "This does not mean patient life should be sustained by all means and circumstances. Nor is it necessarily wrong to hasten end of life through treatment aimed at controlling symptoms, because the intent is to comfort the patient not to kill. In either case it is the underlying disease or injury causing death, not the actions of the doctor or patient" (MCCL para. 11). This idea supports how physician assisted suicide does not go against the Hippocratic oath as it is not the doctor who is killing the patient but it is the disease itself that is. While the Hippocratic oath is the backbone of medicine, it is time to make some changes to it and have it adapt to what today's society wants. Although we can interpret the oath to permit physician assisted suicide, it should be amended to stat clearly that assisted suicide is legal under the wishes of the terminally ill patient. 

An opposing view of physician assisted suicide is the fear that if legalized it could pose a threat to the medical field and change the perception of doctors as healers. Ryan Anderson, PhD, author of "Always Care, Never Kill", states that legalizing physician assisted suicide would corrupt the practice of medicine. Anderson writes, "It corrupts the profession of medicine by permitting tools of healing to be used for killing." (Anderson para. 5). An additional article from the Journal of the American Medical Association conveys ideas similar to those of Anderson. "Physician assisted suicide is fundamentally inconsistent with the physician's role." (Yang para. 2). Both of these articles make valid points regarding the physician's role as a healer and the tools of healing being used to kill.  The Journal of the American Medical Association says that physician assisted suicide is not part of a physician's role to carry out such a procedure. But a physician's role according to the Hippocratic oath is to heal patients. All a physician is doing during an assisted suicide is providing treatment for a patient to end pain and discomfort while preserving autonomy. 

 Likewise, Anderson writes "Physician assisted suicide threatens to fundamentally distort the doctor-patient relationship because it reduces the patients trust of doctors and doctor's undivided commitment to the life and health of their patients." (Anderson para. 5). While many members of the opposition may feel this way, I believe that physician assisted suicide would only increase doctor-patient relationships. Doctors take the oath to heal their patients. They are always striving to find new treatments for their patients.  Legalizing assisted suicide will not stop this. Legalizing assisted suicide enhances the relationships of doctors and patients because every terminally ill patient should feel that they have a doctor that will respect their wishes. Also patients have to request verbally and in writing multiple times to be qualified for assisted suicide. This leaves the choice of assisted suicide entirely up to the patient and only needing the doctor to carry out the procedure, never to suggest it as a way to give up on a patient's treatment.

The legalization of physician assisted suicide is a very debated and very current topic in todays society. As you can see, the right to die, prevention of under the table suicides, and assisted suicide being inline with the Hippocratic oath it is clear that this practice needs to be legalized. While the morals and ethics behind it are often questioned these points prove that it is an ethical and beneficial option for terminally ill patients. It is a fundamental right of each individual in the United States to have the right to die as it protects that individuals right to be able to die in accordance with their own personal values. To reiterate the alarming rate at which assisted suicides are going on under the table, a total of 7% of doctors admitted anonymously that they had either provided a physician with a lethal dose of a prescription or with a lethal injection. We can no longer go about allowing this to happen, because it is within our fundamental rights to die as we wish. Physician assisted suicide needs to be legalized to prevent any more of the unregulated suicides as well as bring the procedure equally to all patients. the best way to do solve this probelm is for there to be legislation that will pass a bill that can legalize it in all fifty states safely. The law would state that physician assisted suicide is a moral and ethical medical procedure, and in order for a patient to undergo this procedure they would need to submit a request once verbally and twice in writing, similar to the procedure that legal states such as Oregon have in place. There will always be many opposing view points to assisted suicide such as religious issues, it hindering the view of a doctor, or even that it would change the doctor-patient relationship. While many feel that it would change the doctor patient relationship for worse, it often changes it for the better as the patient knows that their doctor can provide them with any treatment that they feel is the best fit for them. Overall, physician assisted suicide needs to be legalized in all fifty states it is a positive and ethical treatment option for terminally ill individuals. This practice has been working well in the five states that have legalized it so now it is time for all states to legalize it so that terminally ill patients all over the country have an equal opportunity to their right to die. Once more, think about if you were the twenty-nine-year-old newly wed finding out you had a terminal brain cancer. The only options were brutal treatment that will leave you in debilitated and in pain with the possibility of the aggressive cancer to return. Or you could go peacefully and painlessly with the help of assisted suicide like Brittany Maynard. It is for individuals such as Maynard that assisted suicide needs to be legalized sooner then later.

