Physician Assisted Suicide
Physician-assisted suicide ethically by most in the United States is a very touchy topic and both sides have very heated opinions on this issue. Ethically you are terminating a human life which is medically against the law for a physician to do. It goes against their oath as a physician to do no harm and goes against the law to take a life. Technically if you read the law ending a life other than in a natural aging process or through disease is against the law. One could say that if someone committed suicide and lived to tell the tale then they have broken the law and can face prison time. They usually don’t because society realizes that one should receive help rather than imprisonment.
The legal implications are that the physician has committed murder and should have had the patient declared incompetent rather than assisted in their death. Physician assisted suicide would have the physician giving un-necessary drugs to the patient that would eventually do harm to the patient. The patient would also be breaking the law by committing suicide. The physician is morally and ethically responsible for the patient’s wellbeing.
If made legal, euthanasia could be abused by families of wealthy people seeking to benefit from the death of a relative. It could also be abused by medical, labs, physicians seeking to harvest body parts and tissues from a person that is not conscious or unable to make a informed decision. Abuse could also arise from laboratories that want to grow additional body parts from those that would be willing to get paid for body parts later in life.
My opinion on the matter is that if strict regulations were in place to allow elderly person that is in pain or have the ability to give informed consent. Terminal illness and the inability to sustain any quality of life and in a legal document gave informed consent. They should have the right to make that decision.
