The Legalization of Assisted Suicide :: essays research papers fc

The Legalization of Assisted SuicideOregon, the Netherlands, and Belgium are the yet three jurisdictions in the world that permit sanctioned suicide and/or euthanasia. Oregon became the attr process of the United States in assisted suicide, when the Oregon legislation passed the Death with Dignity Act in 1994, permitting docs to write prescriptions for a lethal dosage of medication to heap with a terminal illness (Department of Human Services). Oregons act specifies who is permitted to assist a terminally ill patient in their time of choosing among life and death. But in the event that the United States as a country legalized assisted suicide, who would determine which patients qualified as terminally ill, and who would be permitted to assist these terminally ill patients? With questions still arising as to how and who on a topic such as assisted suicide, one can only prohibit the action until all aspects have been considered, eliminating confusion.Assisted suicide is considered as someone providing another person with information, guidance, and/or means to take his/her own life. It is only considered to be physician assisted suicide (PAS) when a doctor is the provider. In many cases it is the physician who assists a current patient with their final wish of ending his/her life, but what nigh in other cases? In Last Right, by Carrie Carmichael, Carmichael is asked by her best associate if she (Carmichaels friend) can jump out of Carmichaels window. While training out the action, Carmichael began second-guessing, asking, Could I sleep in my room after my friend plunged to her death from my window (Carmichael, 98)? Not only was Carmichael considering her own emotions, and her own life, but she similarly considered how the action would affect others Nothing to break her fall. But nothing to protect pedestrians either (Carmichael, 98). When a person who wishes to commit suicide pursues assisted suicide, not only is that person affecting themselves, but also those people around them. Carrie Carmichaels friend had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, prohibiting her from committing suicide via an over dosage of pills. Carmichaels friend cute to commit the suicide before she had became too weak to perform the suicide on her own. In Carrie Carmichaels case, the assistance provided to her friend was limited because Carmichael drove her friend to the hotel where she would leap from the building, in opposition to those people who injected loved ones with medications or provided the medications for over dosage, only to be provoked to suffocate the family member in time of mishap.