Currently legal in six states of the United States, physician-assisted suicide is the act of a physician prescribing, but not administering, a lethal dose of medication to voluntarily terminate an individual’s life. This controversial practice has gained a lot of attention after Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old women who suffered from terminal brain cancer, chose to end her life under the Oregon law on physician-assisted suicide. While some argue legalizing assisted suicide is basically legalizing murder, others are in support of it based on the belief that individuals deserve the right to choose when and how they die. With Colorado becoming the most recent state to legalize it, physician-assisted suicide is gaining support and more people are knowledgeable on the subject. Not only has the practice been ruled legal in the U.S., but both England and Canada have declared a similar aid in dying procedure legal and available to citizens. If it was legal throughout the United States, citizens would not have to move to another state in order to gain access to the practice, since all of the bills passed require that the patient is resident of the state. Under the right conditions, physician assisted suicide is good option for people with terminal illnesses and it should become legal in more than just six states.  

Physician-assisted suicide has been proven as the best option for suffering patients, especially in the case of Brittany Maynard. At 29, she was living with a terminal brain tumor which caused her to have seizures and daily pain. Knowing her condition was terminal, she sought to shorten the dying process by looking into taking advantage of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act. Under this act, individuals are able to choose to end their lives through the self-administration of lethal medications prescribed by a physician. However, the Death with Dignity Act has many requirements though before the process can happen and they ensure physicians give the right person the lethal drugs for the right reasons, and that not just anyone can undergo this process. Physicians deemed Brittany Maynard an appropriate candidate for physician-assisted suicide and she chose to end her life on November 1st, 2014 when her symptoms became unbearable. According to People Magazine, she wrote on her Facebook, “Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love. Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me … but would have taken so much more” (Bever 1). Although the end result of this process may have worked for Maynard, the way she had to go about it was not the most accommodating to her situation. Brittany and her husband had to move from their home in California in order to gain access to the death-with-dignity law that was present in Oregon, which at the time was one of only five states to have legalized physician-assisted suicide. Maynard would be happy to know that since then, California, the District of Columbia, and Colorado have all legalized this aid in dying process. By legalizing physician-assisted suicide throughout the U.S., the practice would be available within a patient’s own state. According to the Death with Dignity website, “Legal state residency is a requirement for accessing Death with Dignity laws. In California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington, you may prove residency with any or a combination of the following…” (“How to Access and Use Death with Dignity Laws”). Since the laws require residency, patients have to sometimes move thousands of miles away from their home just to gain access to this practice. This should not be necessary since the process of moving to a whole new place only adds to the burden of those individuals. It also only adds to the financial burden considering they need to buy an apartment or house and sell their old one. Maynard agreed that this should not be the case and up until her death advocated for more states to pass legislation similar to Oregon’s. She also even started her own campaign with Compassion and Choices, a nonprofit organization working to expand end of life options, including physician-assisted suicide. According to an article on the Washington Post, Maynard wrote on her blog, “I didn’t launch this campaign because I wanted attention. I did this because I want to see a world where everyone has access to death with dignity, as I have had. My journey is easier because of this choice” (Bever 1). There are many other personal accounts similar to Maynard’s that provide justification of using physician-assisted suicide and why it needs to become legal throughout the United States. 

According to an article written for the Huffington Post, “Proponents of physician-assisted suicide highlighted the importance of honoring patients’ autonomy and noted that if physicians assist at birth, they should also have a role in assisting at death…” (Gholipour 1). Along with this opinion, advocates believe people deserve the right to end their lives when faced with inevitable death, without the suffering that comes with it. Physician-assisted suicide would be the answer to this problem, as patients can cut short their pain and suffering and end things on their own terms. Most people also bring financial matters into account when deciding their end of life options. Living with a terminal illness becomes costly with all the doctor visits, medication, and sometimes hospice costs, which all play a huge factor into the decision of individuals to undergo physician-assisted suicide. According to an article posted on the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, “End-of-life care is extremely costly, to such an extent that a cap to end-of-life expenses has sometimes been proposed. This raises the conflicting suggestion that there can be price tag assigned to the value of a life. This too, while morally and ethically challenging, directly confronts the reality of the high costs of care” (Zukowski 1). This is where personal values come into play and where the idea of putting a price tag on life causes certain people to become defensive and question their morals. While some may not agree with this, it is a real problem people are faced with, having to choose the value of their life when encountered with money issues. Physician-assisted suicide gives those individuals an answer to their prayers and a way to not leave their families in debt from medical costs, showing the worth of what legalizing this process could do for thousands of people.  

As with most controversial issues, there are two sides to the debate and physician-assisted suicide is no exception to this. While some are in full support of the legalization of it, others have taken a different point of view on the matter and are fully against it. The opposing argument has a more religious viewpoint and brings societies moral values into question. The two main arguments against legalizing physician-assisted suicide are that only God should have the right to end someone’s life and the legalization of physician-assisted suicide is a slippery slope to legalizing murder. Stephanie Packer, who got diagnosed with a terminal lung disease when she was 29, says physician-assisted suicide will never be an option for her. She is attached to an oxygen tank all the time, takes doses of medications, and is in excruciating pain most of her day, but is a devout catholic and believes doctors should never take a role in progressing death. According to a CNN article, Packer said, "God put us here on earth and only God can take us away. And he has a master plan for us, and if suffering is part of that plan, which it seems to be, then so be it” (O’Neill 1). This is highly contrasting compared to Brittany Maynard’s experience with aid in dying and shows the two viewpoints to the debate. Packer also argues individuals should receive only hospice care to alleviate their suffering. As stated in an article posted on the law journal database Hein Online, “This is not to say that all patients have access to and actually receive adequate pain relief and good palliative care. They do not. The delivery of such care is ‘grossly inadequate’ today, and efforts to make such care universally available have not yet succeeded” (Coleson 10). Packer believes should physician-assisted suicide become legal, there is the potential for abuse of the system. Although others believe this too, there are many safeguards put in place to prevent exactly that. 

Generally, most of the laws concerning physician-assisted suicide state that to receive a physician’s assistance in suicide, the patient has to make two oral requests, separated by 15 days, to a physician of the patient’s choice. The patient must make a written request, no less than 48 hours before their doctor prescribes the lethal drugs, which two individuals must witness and confirm the patient is acting voluntarily. Also, the physician must judge if the patient will likely die within six months and then refer the patient to a consulting physician who must verify their judgments. There are many more precautions put in place before one goes about this process and they have prevented any abuse of the system legally. People argue that abuse can occur in other ways concerning race and status, but according to an article from the New York Times, “We are cautioned that legalization would put vulnerable populations like the uninsured and the disabled at risk; however, years of data from Oregon demonstrate that the vast majority of patients who opt for it are white, affluent and highly educated” (Warraich 1). For the people who worry that the legalization of physician-assisted suicide is basically legalizing murder, this is something that would never happen in present time and should not be a reason against supporting physician-assisted suicide. The same New York Times article states, “We are warned of a slippery slope, implying that legalization of assisted suicide would eventually lead to eugenic sterilization reminiscent of Nazi Germany. But no such drift has been observed in any of the countries where it has been legalized” (Warraich 1). This is an extreme viewpoint on the matter and like the concern about murder, should not be taken into account when discussing physician-assisted suicide. Most arguments against the legalization are extremist points of view and are disproven in an effort to convert people’s opinions and ultimately push more states towards legalization.       

Since the first legalization of physician-assisted suicide in Oregon in 1994, there have been a total of 1,545 people who have received prescriptions under the act according to the 2015 Oregon Death with Dignity Act Report. This number aligns with the other states where it is legal and shows that physician-assisted suicide does not affect a huge percentage of the population. According to an article on the New England Journal of Medicine, “There seems to be only a small increase in the number of cases of euthanasia, there are indications that decision making has improved, the number of reported cases has greatly increased, and options for further improvement in public oversight have been identified” (Van der maas 1). Other countries like Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, England, and Canada have also all legalized physician-assisted suicide. Canada just recently legalized it as of June 2017, following in the footsteps of the Dutch and Belgium policies on physician-assisted suicide. According to a Fox News article, Canadas new ruling, “…stems from a 2015 decision by the nation’s highest court that mentally competent Canadian adults suffering ‘intolerable and enduringly’ from a physical aliment have the right to a doctor’s help in dying” (Llorente 1). Although the new law is based upon slightly different conditions it still concerns the same issue. More and more countries are starting to follow after Oregon’s ruling on the issue back in 1994 and they are starting to see the benefits of the legalization in their own area so their citizens don’t have to leave. What is stopping other states from taking similar actions is their majority political viewpoint when voting on the issue. For example, two Senate Democrats in Iowa introduced a bill concerning physician-assisted suicide, but politicians project it to fail in their mostly republican Legislature. Generally, Democrats are in favor of the legalization, while conservative Republicans oppose it. This is mainly due to the religious aspect of the issue and how most conservatives agree with the church. According to an article on VICE News, “Conservative groups, meanwhile, call it a violation of human dignity and right-to-life. And they are finding new ways to push back against the practice” (Browne 1). This is what’s stopping more states from the legalization process, since almost 33 states have a Republican controlled Senate. Also, in recent news, two sponsors of Maryland's End of Life Option Act withdrew the bill when they found out they did not have enough votes for it to pass in the Senate. The Maryland Catholic Conference was a huge opponent of the bill passing and they are also a part of the Maryland Against Physician Assisted Suicide coalition. Politicians project that New Jersey is the closest to being the next state to allow physician-assisted suicide. A bill passed last fall during the 2017 legislative session, and then a Senate committee approved it in November. This is good news for the fight to legalize aid in dying and has given more reasons for other states to the same. Hopefully as time goes on opinions will change and more states will follow after Oregon by legalizing the process that has helped so many people already.      

Under the right conditions, physician assisted suicide is good option for people with terminal illnesses and it should become legal in more than just six states. Physician-assisted suicide, which is the act of prescribing a lethal dose of medication to voluntarily terminate an individual’s life, is a controversial practice. It has gained a lot of attention after Brittany Maynard chose to end her life under the Oregon Death with Dignity Act. While some argue legalizing assisted suicide is basically legalizing murder, others are in support of legalizing it based on the opinion that individuals should have the right to choose when and how they die. Financial reasons are also taken into account for people with terminal illnesses when the cost of surviving is too much. The reasoning behind legalizing it throughout the U.S. is so individuals will not have to become residents of other states in order to gain access to the process. With Colorado recently legalizing it, physician-assisted suicide is gaining support and more people are knowledgeable on the subject than they were in 1994, when Oregon became the first state to legalize it. With it becoming legal throughout the United States, citizens don’t have to move to another state in order to gain access to the practice, since all of the bills passed require that the patient is a resident of that state. Not only has the practice been declared legal in the U.S., but both England and Canada have recently ruled similar legislation with the aid in dying procedure legal and available to their citizens. Under the right conditions, physician assisted suicide is good option for people with terminal illnesses and the U.S. should legalize it in more than just six states. If some states and nations have already legalized it and deemed the process acceptable, others need to follow suit in order for the government to declare physician-assisted suicide available nationwide. With the right requirements and precautions, physician assisted suicide is sometimes the best option for people with terminal illnesses and it needs to become legalized in all 50 states of the United States.  
