Physician Assisted Suicide Should Not Harm Than Good

Introduction Physician-assisted suicide occurs when a physician facilitates a patient’s death by providing the necessary means and/or information to enable the patient to perform the life-ending act. For example, the physician provides sleeping pills and information about the lethal dose, while aware that the patient may commit suicide (Pullicino, n.d). On the other side, natural death occurs when a patient dies from the consequences of old age or disease. The patient s death may be at least partly due to surgery, to a treatment or to a medication (or to their complications), that is given in an appropriate dose and for an appropriate indication, with the intent of treating a disease or relieving pain (Pullicino, n.d). It is understandable that some patients in extreme pressure such as those suffering from a terminal, painful illness may come to decide that they would rather die than live. However, allowing physicians to participate in assisted suicide would cause more harm than good. Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as a healer and would be difficult or impossible to control. Body Topic Physician-assisted suicide is not part of medical ethics and should not become a part. The appeals court noted that the American Medical Association s Code of Ethics declares physician-assisted suicide to be fundamentally incompatible with the physician s role as healer. The court then added a comment of its own: The physician sShow MoreRelatedThe Ethics of Euthanasia Essay1742 Words   |  7 Pages She would often talk about how on his â€Å"good† days he would plead her husband to put a pillow on his head and suffocate him, to take him out of his misery. If it was legal, her husband would have willingly helped her father and put him out of his misery, however in the state of North Carolina, physician-assisted suicide is illegal. Luckily, her father passed away this year and is finally free of pain and suffering. 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