Go Into that Gentle Good Night.....Peacefully?

The choice of whether or not a terminally ill patient should be able to choose when and how they die, is one of the hardest topics to pick sides for. For one instance, nobody should have to suffer, especially terminally ill patients. If people are going to pass away, why not enable them to do so peacefully? In one of the articles I read, it states that if people die in this way, then they won't have to suffer (Right to Die Society, 2012). So is it ethically right to allow people to suffer? When a doctor condones this choice, it is assisted suicide. This can be perceived as a form of murder. When a person is in physical pain, the view is that assisted suicide is an escape from their pain; but what about those who are in mental pain every day? When people are depressed and they attempt suicide, they are usually sent away. So is it right for this to be an exception? I would have to be truly on the fence with that. On one hand suicide to me is ending your life; on the other hand it is ending a loved one’s life that won't cause them pain. It is strictly a kindness. Then that leads to how crazy it would be for anyone to chose when they die. That is a huge and scary decision to make, and can anyone actually make that choice? Is that even ethical or is that going against life itself? How do the doctors feel about this issue? To figure that out one should look at a doctor's point of view. According to study by Louis Finkelstein Institute for Social and Religious Research and HCD, researchers looked to find the percentage of doctors that would go along with this process (Public Agenda, 2007). The statistics that were found were: "34% of doctors said that they would go through with it in some cases, 20% would go through with this on a wide variety of cases, and 54% said that this decision lies solely between the patient and the doctor, and the government should not intervene in the regulation of this process". (Public Agenda, 2007). This suggests that to get doctors to agree they should be allowed to go along with assisted suicide but have it based on what the patient wants.

This article also mentions that a person in question of assisted suicide should be mentally capable of making a living will before they go through with this (Public Agenda, 2007). When being capable the person must do this "in front of two doctors, a lawyer, and a doctor" (Right to Die Society, 2012). My question for that is what if the patient was not exactly mentally capable, what would they do with that patient? That article brings up Michal Shivao's case where "his wife had serious brain-damage"; where it would have been best to just pull the plug, but that resulted in a huge conflict between the family (Public Agenda, 2007). If that was the case would the family be able to let her die without a will? Which also makes me think of is, if it's solely the terminally ill patient’s choice to die, or is it also the families? Would it be considered suicide at all? Another matter that I would like to mention is the issue of misdiagnosis. What if the patient is misdiagnosed and chooses the suicide option? They would have never known the truth and thus choosing suicide would have been for nothing. There are hundreds of ways for people to rationalize this and that could be either good or bad. I don't believe that anyone should have to suffer and if they can prevent this pain, that's great. However suicide is just suicide to me and it is a tricky subject to choose when a person can die. It’s completely against nature. As one can see, I am truly indecisive about this topic.


Resources:

Unknown. Let The Terminally Ill Patients Have A Choice If They Would Want To Live Or Die! (2012). Retrieved September 17, 2012, from [Only admins are allowed to see this link]

Unknown. Right to Die. (2007). Retrieved September 17, 2012, from [Only admins are allowed to see this link]

Clairice, I agree with your post. This was the hardest topic to pick a side for! Nobody should suffer for any reason at all. But then again is it right that people want to kill themselves because they don’t think there is hope? As I said in my post dying isn’t a crime but killing yourself is a crime. Some doctors may think different about what terminal illness really is. So how do we really say when someone is terminally ill?

Katie, you made an excellent point about differing opinions of terminal illness. Terminally ill physically or mentally? If mentally, is the patient competent to make the decision? And who is to decide this competence? I see what you mean saying that dying isn't a crime, however, neither is suicide; it just isn't a socially accepted practice. Under the circumstances of Jack Kevorkian, it was considered murder, which is against the law.