The Right to Die

For a doctor the decision of what is right and moral for a patient, who is resting on their death-bed, can be one of the most difficult decisions of their lives. The patient’s body has began to be taken over by cancer and disease, as they look into the doctors eyes and beg them for death. Should the doctor help this person end their life? What would you do? In my opinion, I strongly believe in a terminally ill patents’ right to choose whether are not to seek assistants in ending their lives; this is why I support Organ’s Death with Dignity Act. On October 27, 1997, Oregon enacted this bill, which allows their terminally-ill citizens’ to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medications, prescribed by a physician for that purpose. From the passage of this bill to 2008, “401 patients have used this act, 81.8 percent of these patients where suffering from malignant neoplasm.” I know that many people criticize these thoughts, as well as, this bill; but I know that it is moral better to end ones pain then to let someone live a life of pain and sadness. In 2006, Gorge W. Bush challenged this act, in the case of Gonzales v. Oregon; but later the case was upheld by the Supreme Court. In Gonzales v. Oregon, the Supreme Court ruled that the United States Attorney General could not enforce the Controlled Substance Act against physicians prescribing drugs for the assisted suicide of the terminally ill, as permitted by an Oregon law. I feel that the Death with Dignity Act is an efficient and necessary bill. I also believe that the United States government should greatly consider creating a bill very similar to this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Death_with_Dignity_Act

Death Penalty

I thought I knew exactly where I stood on the death penalty issue, but after reading Misty Day’s article, “Wrongfull Convictions...Death Penalty?,” I began to rethink my stance on the topic. Before reading this entry, I thought as Misty did, I had no problem with the death penalty. I strongly believed that if one person took the life from another than it is only fitting for the killer to be put to death. I never really thought about the fact that there is a huge possibility that there may have been false evidence presented, at some point, during the investigations, leading the suspect to wrongfully be convicted. As Misty did, I too, researched the case of Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 based off faulty evidence. I knew our government was corrupt, but I never knew that Governor Perry was corrupt enough to deliberately replace a chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, because he was going to "expose" what really happened. This is completely wrong! So now we come back to the question of whether or not the death penalty in right? Truly, I am now more confused than when I began my research. All I know is that I want the true murders to be served the death penalty, but only if the convicted has been severed a completely fair trial and there is solid evidence of their wrong doings.