

I am interested in this topic because one day I plan on becoming a healthcare professional. I also currently work in a hospital so I know first hand the situations where this topic would come into play and could be very beneficial. I feel passionately about physician assisted suicide, because I think that terminally ill patients should have the choice of how they want to end their life, whether that be in pain and suffering or with the use of physician assisted suicide. Its their life, nobody else including the government should be able to decide when they can die, its every humans natural right to decide how they live their lives and in certain situations when they want to end it. Even though I do not have personal experience regarding Physician Assisted suicide, I still think that it is very important, because one day we could all be in a situation where this does directly effect us. I am qualified to write about this topic due to the numerous amounts of research I have conducted by reading articles and medical journals in addition to first hand accounts that directly pertained to physician assisted suicide. The three sources that I have found differ greatly on their viewpoints on physician assisted suicide. One uses factual information just to give the reader a good understand of what exactly physician assisted suicide is and what all goes into it. The other two give a good insight into the arguments both for and against PAS. 

For my first source which is "Physician-assisted suicide" by Sulmasy Snyder, not only gives the reader a good understanding of what PAS is exactly, but it also tells the reader the numerous situations when PAS could potentially be an option for a person. The major values that I think contributed greatly to this article are that it showed very little to no bias, which not only allows the reader to get a completely unbiased look at the topic, but it also gives a lot of factual information. Which really helps to form their own opinions about the topic without being influenced by someone else. Lastly, the author of this article is Sulmasy Snyder, an MD and also the director at the center for ethics at the American college of physicians. Through her work she has seen first hand the consequences and benefits of Physician assisted suicide which she discussed in her article. Along with her own input throughout the article, she also uses other physician's input as well to further strengthen her reasoning. Since this article did provide a large amount of factual information it will be very useful in my argument by helping to provide a strong support system to my overall claim which is physician assisted suicide should be legal nation wide.

My second source's central claim is that if PAS is allowed in all states there should be very strict guidelines to decide whether or not a person can choose to have a physician help them to take their life. What this article is trying to say, is that only people who are terminally ill with a disease that keeps them in continuous pain, not depression should be allowed to use PAS. While I do agree with some parts of this article, personally I think that It is hard to determine on which bases a person should be allowed to use PAS, because in a way someone suffering from depression could feel as if they are in continuous pain. The major values of this article is that guidelines for PAS usage will have to be strictly monitored, which could be good because it would keep people or doctors from abusing it. On the other hand, if the process to use physician assisted suicide become to long patients could die or begin to suffer before they are even allowed to use it. The author of this article is Christopher Hale, he is the executive director at Catholics in alliance for common good and the co-founder of millennial. He has also written numerous articles on many other controversial issues. 

 My third article's central claim is that the use of PAS Is not only moral, but it is also caring, because allowing someone who is in pain to take away their suffering is the most caring thing that we can do and it uses first hand accounts where people who have had to watch a loved one slowly die while in pain and how they would have done anything to take that pain away and let them die in peace. The major values of this article is that it uses pathos throughout its entirety to help people see the pros of having PAS made legal across the united states. The author of this article was Howard Ball has his Ph.D. from Rutgers University and his areas of expertise include constitutional Law, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights and American Government. Overall this article is strongly biased towards the legalization of physician assisted suicide since most of its evidence clearly persuades one to see how positive and beneficial physician assisted suicide can be. 

This research question is arguable, because there are two definite ways one can argue and there's evidence to support either side. Through my research I have found that although there are the two definite sides of this argument, a lot of people found that it is hard to pick a side because while although they may feel passionate towards one particular side there is also attributes of the other that they feel strongly about as well. The different perspectives on this topic affect my own stance in different ways, because while some help to reaffirm my stance, others make me questions how I truly feel towards this topic, which in a way can be beneficial because it allows me to figure out how a truly feel towards this topic. The only way that my research questions might could be revised is to narrow it down, because I have found that it might be hard to fully prove the research question I have now in the number of pages allowed.     
