Euthanasia, Physician Assisted Suicide, And Assisted Suicide are centered around one issue; the right for a person to choose, “When is is there time to go? All these processes are different in practice. Euthanasia is the overarching theme for this controversial topic and what people usual refer to it as while Physician Assisted Suicide or Assisted Suicide or PAS and AS for short are the legal procedures that are like euthanasia but involve the patient. Over the last two decades this topic has been widely discuss in the field of medicine and nursing portions of the health system as it most affects them. The issue centers around whether it is legally plausible to allow doctors and patients to carry out their own deaths by their command. It also has stirred up debate in the religious community, as a large portion of that community view Euthanasia as wrong and essentially humans playing god. The drug administration plays a hand in the economic portion of the issue and expands the scope of it even further. The U.S has only recently begun to allowed Euthanasia in certain states. For all people to have Euthanasia available to them, they must understand the logic and reason behind it, come to a consensus on the criteria that will allow it, and get the procedure to the people that need it, the opposition is also important to consider and understand why people denounce it as an unethical, immoral, and a religious issue.

Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia has been a topic on the rise for a decade now. The issue first started to gain traction with the first legalizations of it in places like Switzerland, Australia, and countries in the European Union. People began to see Euthanasia for what it is, a way to relieve suffering for people who are ill(Donovan). It important to know what Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide is before understanding why it is important that we have it. Euthanasia is a process of a physician relieving a patient of their life. This can come in two forms being active and passive, active euthanasia which involves a physician directly intervening in the process and taking the patient’s life, for example; injections, giving drugs, and other things along those lines. Passive euthanasia is the process of indirectly interfering with a patients’ procedures that keep them alive, this can be refusal of treatment, refusal of medication, or rejection of nourishment by patient request. Assisted suicide is the process of the patient ending their life through doctor prescribed drugs or by having their treatment denied. The U.S currently has 6 states that allows P.A.S and Euthanasia, which include: Oregon, Colorado, California, Montana, Vermont, District of Columbia, and Washington. To have PAS or Euthanasia done for a patient they must also have met certain criteria. The patient must: “Be a resident of the above states, be at least 18 years old, have the mental capacity to make healthcare decisions, and must have a terminal illness with less than a half a year to live” (Antill 36). The process is constantly undergoing change and revisions from state to state and from country to country. Assisted Suicide is a very rigorous process, even so, Assisted Suicide is a highly refuted topic with two strong opposing sides with pro-choice side advocating heavily for its implementation everywhere.

Assisted suicide should be implemented in all places and needs a universal set of laws to govern the procedure. A.S. has many proponents and advocacy groups in the nursing and health care systems. Them, along with many others take a logical approach to the issue. It’s a simple matter of finding relief for people and their families. Although, that Assisted Suicide may seem like a straightforward issue to concluded. After the procedure, in the eyes of the laws the physician or patients are killing another person or themselves regardless of how it was done or the circumstances, which is why it’s so highly contested. With this information in mind people would ignore this small insight, because it wouldn’t make sense to keep a person in pain unnecessarily. Such is the case with terminally ill patients they are kept alive with a painful process which requires rigorous medical schedule, costly procedures, and all for little relief to the patient. This is where Assisted Suicide comes into play. It gives an option to patients who want another option other than to prolong life as much as possible and would rather have more control of their life. In Stephanie Antill’s interview with a terminally ill patient, the patient put it best when she says, “I can imagine a time in the dying process from cancer when I may have had enough of the compromises and losses of the interventions that it takes to be comfortable. I think it’s an option of last resort, but it’s very important to me to have that option” (Antill 37). As with most people who support the issue no matter what the situation is there’s always another solution other than having to go through the intensive and palliative end-of-life care.

Assisted suicide will not only reduce the pain and suffering of the patients, but also benefit all parties involved by reducing cost of medical care and giving consolidation to families and physicians. Medical procedures are very costly for end-of-life and terminally ill care and usually ended up causing the family of the dying patient strife. Since there are costly medical procedures for terminally ill people; the full implementation of Assisted Suicide would cause this price to go down. The procedures that would have taken place during the time of the patients last months of life would not have had to be done, therefore less money spent by the family and more time for the hospital to focus on other patients. It is an economical benefit to have assisted suicide for both parties as families don’t have to worry about medicine and procedures and neither do the physicians and time and money could be used for research into other things such as cures and procedures for prolonging life and fixing other medical illnesses. It may sound insensitive to try to put a price on someone’s life, but it is in fact not. If the person can control their timing for death as stated before it can give them time to talk with their families and console them for the loss that will be imminent. Assisted Suicide is a needed right and option for terminally ill and old patients to have, however with these benefits come the risks.

Assisted suicide has considerable risk that comes along with its implementation. Assisted Suicide along with its newfound media coverage over the last decade has met fierce opposition to the idea of it. Many people view it as a moral issue, they believe no matter what type of killing it is even for the right reason that, killing is killing. There are also the legal concerns that have to do with people taking advantage of the situation and getting people who are ill to resort to assisted suicide for their own gain such as insurance claims and personal rewards. Others also view it as a religious issue and believe that people don’t have the right to decide when and where the end come and that only a higher power can decide. The main idea behind most of the opposing side remains with relief for the patient because the problem itself doesn’t fall into the realm of the physician and those who want to have the option of relief for their patients but instead with the way it’s done and why death must be a predominating option. A writer Daniel Lee emphasizes, “Those of us opposed to physician-assisted suicide would do well to focus our efforts on helping others discover the meaning and hope that are possible in life, even during suffering” (Lee). Or in simpler terms, most of the opposition would like to focus on how to make the rest of your life better even if you are suffering, rather than focusing on the best way to end it. The opposition isn’t limited to the average person either, some of the opposition come from the very people who perform it, physicians. The idea of assisted suicide to some physicians goes against what they stand for as health care professional, which is to keep their patients in the best possible health condition and prolong life. Its paradoxical in a way that the very people task with keeping you alive under this system must take that life away. Most profession would urge to find another way not necessarily say that assisted suicide isn’t an option but would prefer that their patients opted for something other than it and use it as only a last option when all else fails (Loconte). Although assisted suicide is an emotionally charged, highly controversial, and sensitive topic it should not stand in the way of people figuring out what’s best for them going forward

Assisted Suicide needs to be implemented everywhere with a clear reason and logic to it. Assisted suicide is an alternative option to the palliative and intensive care for old and terminally ill people. Assisted Suicide will give great control over the end-of-life process and turn it form a painful experience into one that most people can accept. It will benefit the families by allowing them to console with their love ones and reduce the emotional and economical strain they face when dealing with terminally ill and elder family members. Assisted suicide also must go through even more rigorous legal examination for its implementation to avoid any major problems with the it. If abuse or economic advantages would come at the price of someone’s life it would be a serious boon to the process and the options that people would have when exercising the want for Assisted Suicide. There will be fierce opposition to the issue no matter how far along it comes because killing is still killing, and death will always be a sensitive topic to cover. The legal process will strip and revise this process for next years to come, because this is an everchanging subject. Religious beliefs won’t change, but the only hope is that the opposition comes to accept the benefit that assisted suicide would bring and would see that it is a necessary part of our healthcare system that needs to be put in place of everyone to use and have available to them.
