Imagine being in constant agony, given just a maximum of six months to live, as there is no possible cure for your illness. Your family members are taking turns visiting the hospital as your condition worsens day by day. All that you hope for is to finally die, and rid yourself and your family from all the pain and suffering.
In recent years, the topic of Physician Assisted Suicide(PAS) has been quite controversial. Should it be allowed or not? Is it ethically correct or not?
Video Source: Air Bear from YouTube
Arguments for Physician Assisted Suicide:
- Patients are terminally ill or disabled and in immense amounts of pain
- The right to commit suicide should be considered a basic human right
- Wanting to leave the world peacefully and with dignity
- Reducing unnecessary health care costs for both the medical system and the family
- Canada could yearly save up to 139 billion
Arguments against Physician Assisted Suicide:
- Helping patients commit suicide would violate the Hippocratic Oath that doctors take
- Encouraging the terminally ill or disabled to commit suicide reduces the value of a human life
- May cause religious issues since many religions disallow suicide and consider it a sin
- Insurance companies may encourage doctors to refrain from heroic measures to save patients in order to save money
- Would place too much control in the hands of physicians
Through proper measures, I believe that the pros highly outweigh the cons when it comes to PAS, considering that a patient is just waiting to die when they are in that position. If the end result is inevitably going to be death, why prolong the pain that a person may be in? Seems like a no brainer when you put the patient first, and have all the “what ifs” take a back seat.
Image Credit: cbc.ca
The two most common medications that are taken when patients go through with assisted suicide are secobarbital and pentobarbital. Secobarbital and pentobarbital are types of barbiturates, or in other words, sedatives. When a lethal dose is taken, an individual’s heart rate slows down as well as their breathing. They then slip into a coma within minutes, with death occurring soon after (anywhere between a half hour to 48 hours).
Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and of recently Canada allow the assistance of physicians in the death of patients. The United States authorizes medical aid in dying in five states: Oregon, Montana, Washington, Vermont, and California. Since being passed in 2016, 200 Canadians have used assisted suicide in Ontario and British Columbia.
As the thought of PAS is hard to digest, I believe that a person should never be in unnecessary pain given that there is no chance of getting better. It is not humane to witness a suffering person who has no chance of survival, just for them to live an extra couple of months. Therefore through appropriate measures, every terminally ill patient should have the right to end their lives and rid themselves and their families of excruciating pain.
– Harpun Brar
