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
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You argue for the “Right to Die” on your blog http://christinemmooore.blogspot.com/ and support the “Death with Dignity Act” in Oregon
ReplyDeleteI consider myself a “pro life” person and have very strong stances on controversial issues like the death penalty and abortion, but in this case I do agree with your “pro-choice for death” position – at least to a certain degree. What made me think differently here, is the fact that someone gets to make their own free choice to end their own life voluntarily.
Well this would be the “best” case scenario. If someone who is suffering from pain, who has lost all hope for a cure decides to end his own life. But what if this someone is not in a condition to make such a decision for himself? Who gets to decide then? The doctors? The family? The Court? Which part of the family? What about those cases where the husband or wife wants something totally different than the parents? There are many questions which need to be considered and I can completely understand the doctor’s dilemma they find themselves in.
Does the Hippocratic Oath not matter to modern physicians anymore?
Historically, the accepted code of ethical conduct for doctors has been the Hippocratic Oath. Hippocrates was a Greek physician and called by many "the father of medicine." The Hippocratic Oath has served as a model of professional conduct and for the ethical practice of medicine. One portion of the oath reads: "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect."
So yes it is a tough decision for a doctor to help someone die, to end his/her suffering.
My personal viewpoint is that the whole concept of doctor assisted suicide is a total distortion of the basic commitment of the physician to support and help life. I cannot see how a physician can legitamize bringing about death. But I do believe humans should have a right to decide whether they want to end their OWN lives or not. If the US is going to support such a bill like the “Death with Dignity” act in Oregon they need to make sure that the doctors will be involved in it as little as possible. It would also help if each individual thought about how they would want to be “helped” in such a situation, if it ever occurs, and maybe write something like a “medical will.”