Imagine being 29 years old, recently married and graduated, trying for your first children. Then, you start getting migraines. Shortly thereafter these “migraines” becomes migraines on steroids. Your headaches are so strong and last so long you cannot function properly for the day(s) following it. On 2014’s New Year’s eve, a day of celebration and hope for the future, you are diagnosed with brain cancer. Instead of “eating healthier”, or “doing random acts of kindness” type notes filling your New Year’s Resolution page, you’re filling in a bucket list. Nine days later, you have two surgeries in the same afternoon just to stop the tumor growth. Then for three months you wait. You have to invest every little ounce of energy your body has left to muster up after fighting the disease, into hope. Hope of making it to 2015. 3 months later, in April, you are given 6 months to live, and prescribed full brain radiation. The side effects leave your “hair singed off, scalp covered in first-degree burns, and a life quality that is extremely low” (Maynard 4). From here she had two options, the first was to fight for her life against the cancer, the treatment, and the quality of life she would receive, all for hope that the cancer will go away. Or, she could take a pill, fall asleep forever, and be at home with friends and family when it was time for them to go. This is what she did on November 1, 2014 at her home in Portland, Oregon. She was surrounded by her friends and family when her last breath was taken. The right to life, and human nature’s desire to provide comfort to others should overrule the thought that all diseases can be cured eventually and everyone should cherish their days living, to allow for the legalization of Physician Assisted Suicide.  

Physician Assisted Suicide is a problem for a few reasons, most being ethically. The biggest ethical problem surrounding this debate is that of the Hippocratic Oath. Medical Doctors are required to take an oath before they become M.D.’s and in the Oath, they say “If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God” (Lasagna 4). Doctor’s would be playing at God if they could write prescriptions for medications that would have only the single purpose to kill someone. What are M.D.’s supposed to do when faced with this challenge? They have to either abide by the Oath they took, or take the risky chance of being shunned by the medical community for deciding to take part in the progression of medicine.

Another ethical problem surrounding Physician Assisted Suicide is that the Medical community believes there is always a solution to the disease, and that healing can always happen it’s just a matter of time before it is discovered. Medical faculty are supposed to hear and acknowledge the request to die, but never go through with it because it is their duty to find a cure. They take an Oath before becoming licensed to “apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism” (Lasagna 4). Some MD’s, such as Guy Micco believe that “our career and years of school/experience are all in hope to cure every person we come in contact with and if we write a prescription for them to die, we have given up on pursuing a cure should no longer be MD’s” (Jaret 6). These beliefs are shared by a majority of the Medical community and is one of the main reasons Physician Assisted Suicide is ethically wrong. It directly opposes the very Oath MD’s are sworn to take before receiving licensure. If there truly is a potential cure, then every MD should fight to discover, and administer/share said cure as soon as they can. 

With that information presented, now what? Should we the people listen to the Medical community because it is their specialty, their career, and laws they have created for our betterment? The answer is no. We should not listen to the Medical community because of these reasons. In the past laws have been changed, and so there’s no reason to not change these ones to help provide comfort to our fellow man or woman. Our lives are about doing what it takes to survive, but at what point does our body give up this desire? In the Constitution of the USA, we are given the right to life. A right is defined by Google as “a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something” (“Right”), meaning we have the right to live, but it’s an entitlement, not a requirement. We are not required to life.

Furthermore, there are some Medical Doctors who continue to fight for Physician Assisted Suicide. Dr. Hader Warraich believes that Physicians that oppose Physician Assisted suicide have “turned death into dying” (Warraich 3), referring to the fact that without aid in death, dying can be a long, hard, depressing, and painful road to trek, only to end death. In a clinic one of Dr. Warraich’s patients requested “if my heart stops doctor, just let me go” (Warraich 1), and after Warraich asked why, he responded by “there are worse states than death” (Warracih 1). How can you as a human let someone suffer like that? Should we not as a human race accept that some people would like to give up their right to life when they are suffering? 

Another reason Physician Assisted Suicide should be legalized is patients who are going through intense pain can develop morphine dependency or morphine resistance. Morphine is taken in doses, and sometimes the human body will create a chemical causing it to redefine pain. When this happens your entire body will ache and hurt immensely without the drug, and only feel normal if you have enough morphine in your system. Your body will constantly be in pain without it. Nobody wants to live through that, and for the patients in need of constant morphine, most would rather die than fight. Morphine can also be resisted. In the same way that your body depends the drug, your body can become resistant to morphine when morphine creates a chemical reaction. This will cause you to always feel pain no matter what. Morphine is the strongest opiate offered to relieve pain, and if you become resistant to that, the pain you would feel every second of every day would be the worst feeling of your life. Why would anyone want to suffer for every breath, if they don’t want to suffer anymore? Physician Assisted Suicide could provide these people comfort if these issues were to happen to them.

One of the bigger moral issues with Physician Assisted Suicide is a term in the name, suicide. Once an Oregon senator, Ms. Julie McMurchie asked that we “refrain from using the term ‘suicide’ in this context, because it demeans that human and the memories loved ones have of them” (Specter 8). When you think of suicide, you think of someone killing themselves due to sadness, or by accidental/purposeful drug overdose. A physician is aiding in your death because you are under immense amounts of pain and living through a terrible quality of life. Instead of demeaning these people, and thinking of their passing as a suicide, we should celebrate them for everything they accomplished and who they were.

A problem discovered in other countries, but not in Oregon, is that some M.D.s are euthanizing patients who are very ill and close to death even if that is not their desire. This is because they have slightly different laws allowing an M.D. to euthanize one of aforementioned patients. Although Oregon does not allow that, neither did these other countries did at first. People fear that if Americans legalize Physician Assisted Suicide, that one day it will allow for physicians to euthanize patients who do not want to die yet, but would rather fight. Jonathan Imbody, a Senior Policy Analyst for the CMA, tells us a story of a man named Franz. Franz went for a routine check-up when he was told he had a terminal illness. When his family was informed, they gave Franz very little time to live. His family suggested euthanasia and after being pressured by his wife and daughter, Franz decided to be euthanized. But, when it came time for the procedure, Franz changed his mind. He called out “I don’t want to die” (Specter 13), and yet the M.D. proceeded with the lethal injections and killed Franz. This is a power that M.D.’s should not be given. Choosing when it is someone’s time to die is not their choice, but the choice of who’s life will be taken. 

Judith Dunning, an oral historian at Cal-Berkeley, was losing her ability to speak due to brain cancer. She made a video expressing her desire to die when she could no longer speak. As the brain cancer progressed Judith fought, but when her time came, she was happy to let her life end. In her videos she said she felt that everything she wanted to accomplish, she had. Judith was content with her life, and when her voice was lost, she did end her life. Why should someone whose entire life’s work and livelihood is taken away due to a terminally debilitating disease be forced to grind out and through every single day? Judith lived the way she wanted to, and died the way she wanted to, and this option should be available to everyone who wants to take advantage of it.

Another reason for Physician Assisted Suicide is because of America’s awful palliative care and hospice programs. In American an “estimated 40-70% of patients die in pain, another 50-60% die feeling short-of-breath; 90% of nursing homes are grossly understaffed” (Morrow 7). This is an incredible amount of patients who are suffering when they are dying. Physician Assisted Suicide could cut these numbers to very low levels. Our palliative care of people could greatly increase allowing a lot less patients to experience pain and suffering when they die.

Furthermore, in the 3 states that have legalized Physician Assisted Suicide, there are some very astounding stats that were found… It was found that “86% of patients reported a decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable, 100% reported loss of autonomy, and 86% reported loss of dignity. Also, 62% of the patients who requested Physician Assisted Suicide followed through with taking the prescription” (Morrow 18). This means that 86% of people could not do certain activities that helped them enjoy their daily life. 100% of these patients reported the loss of control to part of their bodies, and another 86% lost their dignity. The major majority of people who requested Physician Assisted Suicide are not able to live the way they desire too, and are their lives decrease more every day. These are the kinds of people Physician Assisted Suicide is supposed to help. It’s to let people die comfortably, and content. 

The decision to end your own life should be strictly yours if you’re terminally ill and dying. It does not harm anyone else, and allows you to die on your own terms in the sanctity of your own home. Although many arguments have been made against Physician Assisted Suicide, the pros far outweigh the cons. It is time that Americans allow their people die on their own terms, comfortably. 
