Introduction
The massive exploration and developments in the world of medicine have given human beings the power to rescue people from a wide-range of life-threatening situations more than before.
Through these discoveries, several diseases can be managed, even though some of them were known to be killer infections in the past. Besides these possibilities, other developments in medical technology have also made it possible for doctors to sustain and prolong the life of the sick. Oftentimes, this sustenance occurs yet physical and mental well-being of a patient may not be restored under any medical procedure (Quill, 2012).
In such cases, the conditions are usually irreversible and the pain experienced by the patient cannot be controlled. This leaves the life of the patient in the hands of physicians, who may choose to discontinue life-support procedures or maintain the patient up to the last minute. There is need to legalize assisted suicide in order to deal with rising cases of people suffering from terminal illnesses, who endure unnecessary pain before dying.
Pro Assisted Suicide
It is doubtless that the every human being has the right to live and enjoy life to the fullest without termination. Based on this, it is a criminal offense to end a person’s life, even when the patient has requested to be put to death. In promoting the dignity of a person’s life, it is equally important to consider the need of enhancing dignified death among patients, suffering from terminal illnesses (Quill, 2012).
Why should suicide not be considered as a crime yet assisting a terminally-ill person to die is seen as a criminal offense? While this debate has raised a lot of controversy based on the ethical implications and violations of human rights, assisted suicide has countless benefits to the patient, family members, physicians, and the government.
Regardless of the conditions of a person, it is imperative to appreciate the fact that people have the free will to decide what to do to their lives without causing any form of harm to others. Of great significance is the fact that this right allows one to terminate his or her life, without being pressured by any external forces.
In other words, a person who requests to be put to death should be granted his or her plea without any form of pressure from a friend, family member or physician (Quill & Battin, 2004). Even though a number of people may be willing to terminate their lives because of various health problems, some conditions make it impossible to die in an honorable manner. It is therefore essential that such people should be granted their wish to die once they call upon a physician or family member to assist them to die.
Besides responding to the pleas of the sick and assisting them to die, it is worth noting that human beings have a duty to relieve other people from pain and ensure that their dignity is respected throughout. Today, there are millions of people lying in hospitals, experiencing unbelievable pain and unable to function normally as human beings. In fact, some doctors know that the health condition of such patients cannot be reversed or managed in any way to allow them live their dignity as before.
Under such conditions, patients do not see the hope of getting better but know that any extra day added to their lives means additional pain (Quill & Battin, 2004). When people who are under irreversible medical conditions request for merciful death, it becomes inhuman for the physician or the person responsible to deny them their right to die honorably. As compassionate human beings, we are supposed to respect and obey the feelings of the sick in order to allow them to have a dignified death.
No one can deny that some health conditions can drain patients to a point where they are seen as human shells. In some cases, patients become helpless, unable to take care of themselves, thus calling for assistance from family members or nurses.
Other conditions like Alzheimer cause worse loss of memory, making one to forget the past regardless of how successful and happy it might have been (Battin, Rhodes & Silvers, 1998). For instance, a president who suffers such an illness may not be remembered for his successful leadership, but for his devastating end-times. Assisted suicide would therefore allow people to die with self-worthiness and pride.
Assisted suicide should also be legalized to reduce hospital bills and insurance premiums. While people suffering from terminal diseases may not survive at all, their treatment and sustenance is costly and may cause the family to spend beyond its limits. In order for a hospital to keep a dying patient alive, a lot of technology and resources have to be involved (Battin, Rhodes & Silvers, 1998). Family members have to incur costs on lab tests, X-rays, oxygen machines, and other life-supporting equipment.
These expenses may be too high for the family to meet and unbeneficial especially when the doctors are aware that the patient won’t live for long. It is important to ask if this is the best way of spending family resources when the patient has expressed the willingness to die. Based on this argument, it is vital to spare a person’s savings for his children and coming generations instead of wasting it on a dying patient in hospital.
By legalizing assisted suicide, nurses and other medical practitioners will have ample time to attend to patients who can be saved from their illnesses. This can be quite beneficial based on the fact that the country faces a constant shortage of nurses to attend to patients in hospitals. In recent findings, it has been discovered that hospitals, which are understaffed are prone to offering poor quality services to patients.
The situation may further worsen especially with increasing life expectancy (Battin, Rhodes & Silvers, 1998). At this point, it is essential to make a decision between attending to dying patients and assigning physicians to hospitals with savable patients. It is shocking to learn that one freed nurse or doctor can save hundreds of patients in a few days. This would also promote the quality of services offered to patients in hospitals around the country.
In addition, assisted suicide would help patients to exercise their religious freedom. Since most religions believe in life after death, the government ought not to restrict its citizens from dying especially in cases where their health conditions cannot be reversed. Legalizing this would also save families from pain, which they get exposed to when their loved ones are suffering (Hull, 2004).
Early death of a loved one would guard against emotional drainage that accompanies the suffering period. It would also save body organs, which could be used to restore the health of living people. These include hearts, livers, and kidneys among others. This is because the life of the living is better than that of a dying patient.
Against Assisted Suicide
Assisted suicide should not be legalized, because some patients choose to die as a result of stress and not on the basis of an irreversible condition (Friend, 2011). Millions of people have suffered from depression before and recovered to become important members of the society. Therefore, terminating their lives would be unfair because depression is manageable.
Additionally, human life is considered to be sacred from a religious point of view. In this context, assisted death is considered as murder and it is unethical in most communities (Hull, 2004). One should therefore be allowed to live since God is the giver of life. Instead of governments debating assisted suicide, they should invest in finding solutions to terminal illnesses like cancer so that patients are not killed mercifully.
While every human being has the right to live, legalizing assisted death may undermine this provision. For instance, there is likely pressure on sick people to die instead of draining the family through hospital bills and other costs associated with sustaining the sick.
The poor, old, and minorities are likely to suffer most and become victims of forced suicide, best on the fact that they depend on other family members for their survival (Hull, 2004). In fact, legalizing assisted death does not solve the problems of poverty and an ageing society. The government should consider better ways of supporting the minorities in the country.
Response to anti-assisted Suicide
As stated before assisted suicide is important in cases where the physicians have tested beyond doubt that the life of a patient cannot be saved. In this context, the patient’s wish and the verdict of the doctor concur.
This is to say that the decision to terminate a person’s life cannot be conceived without considering possible ways of saving his or her life (Friend, 2011). In other words, assisted suicide cannot be applied in every situation of illness; cases of terminal diseases are common. In addition, termination of one’s life on the basis of health does not undermine the fact that human life is sacred.
Based on the fact that most religions believe in life after death, it would be better to terminate a dying person’s life instead of letting him suffer in pain. This can usher the patient into another world, which is unknown. Importantly, legalizing assisted suicide would cut the treatment cost felt by the government and families. The law would not focus on the aged or the poor, but on those in irreversible states.
Conclusion
Assisted suicide remains a debatable issue around the country, with no consensus having been reached. However, based on the advantages of this legislation, it is important for the life of dying people to be terminated. This lessens the burden of spending resources and family savings on a person who ends up dying after a few months or years.
Besides the economical advantages, assisted suicide would ensure that families do not suffer emotionally in taking care of sick people that are in irreversible medical conditions. While this is the case, the implementation of such a law should curb against the exploitation of the poor and the aged, who might be pressured to consider merciful death.
References
Battin, M., Rhodes, R., & Silvers, A. (1998). Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate. United Kingdom: Routledge.
Friend, M. (2011). Physician-Assisted Suicide: Death with Dignity. Journal of Nursing Law, 14 (4), 110-116.
Hull, R. (2004). Phyician Assited Suicide, Pro and Con. Secular Humanism. Web.
Quill, T. (2012). Physicians Should ‘Assist in Suicide’ When It Is Appropriate. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 40 (1), 57-65.
Quill, T., & Battin, M. (2004). Physician-Assisted Dying: The Case for Palliative Care and Patient Choice. Maryland: JHU Press.