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Violet Wang

Ms. Gardner

English 10H, 5th period

2 May 2018

Assisted Suicide:

Liberty to Die with Dignity

The Hippocratic Oath, a historically used set of moral guidelines written by the “Father

of Medicine”, Hippocrates, proclaims: “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked

for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect”(“Greek Medicine”). Assisted suicide, the

decision of a qualified terminally ill patient to take lethal drugs administered by a medical

practitioner, challenges this ancient ethical code. However, abiding by the words of our pledge,

“with liberty and justice for all”, incurable patients deserve the right to die in order to be

liberated from prolonged suffering. Nevertheless, only six states have legalized assisted suicide

in the United States (“State-by-State Guide”). Although assisted suicide may initially present

safety or moral dilemmas, it can be properly regulated to provide a safe and ethical option for

terminally ill patients to end their suffering in a planned manner, while also benefiting health

care and enabling organ harvest.

Admittedly, the system of assisted suicide can be abused. Because a prognosis of six

months or less to live is required to qualify for assisted suicide (“Fast Facts”), the lethal drugs

may be used in non-critical cases, or prematurely, as shown in cases of unforseen recovery. John

Kelly, director of Second Thoughts, a group opposed to the legalization of assisted suicide,

points out that “Every year, however, doctors misjudge the time a person has left, and many

‘graduate’ from their six-month ‘terminal illness’ hospice benefit.” These misdiagnoses can
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mislead a patient and their family into making choices based off false information. Additionally,

it can be difficult to navigate the boundaries between individual freedom and the responsibility

of protecting vulnerable patients. Dr. Lieve Thienpont, a psychiatrist certified to qualify patients

for euthanasia, submits that the patients that seek assisted suicide often “are very desperate,

stressed. They say things that are not always correct.” This creates a concern that patients can be

pressured into making decisions or not be of sound mind to make them. The considerations of

the opposition largely highlight how assisted suicide can target the vulnerable and be based off

unsound diagnoses. Indeed, these points are of reasoned concern, however, it is unfair to force

patients to continue their unbearable suffering on a slim chance that they may suddenly recover.

Additionally, safeguards are in place to help prevent abuse in the system. Assisted suicide should

be legalized because the safe and well regulated option it provides for the terminally ill is a

necessary right, which overrides the rare occurrences of possible abuse that is bound to happen in

every system.

Although many worry about the regulations of assisted suicide, it has shown to be a safe

and thoroughly planned process that centers around the wellbeing of the patient. Safeguards

ensure that patients are qualified and can make voluntary, informed decisions. Thaddeus Mason

Pope, the director of the Health Law Institute at Hamline University, explains how assisted

suicide is regulated:

Physicians are trained and required to educate the patient about all options, including

palliative care, pain management and hospice. Patients must be mentally healthy and

make three separate requests. The patient can rescind these requests at any time. To

further ensure that patients remain in full control of the process, they must administer the

medication themselves.
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These safeguards show that, despite wariness from critics, qualifying for assisted suicide

is a complex process that ensures a patient has contemplated their decision. Pope goes on to

explain that over 97 percent of the patients who died from a lethal prescription were white and

98 percent had health insurance. These statistics show that there is no inordinate impact on

vulnerable populations and that not only have the regulations protected the people, they have

done it well. In Oregon, where assisted suicide has be in effect since 1997, the clean track record

has helped fight repeals to the act (“20 Years”). In fact, "No physician or pharmacy has ever

been sanctioned or reprimanded in 20 years” reports George Eighmey, president of the Death

with Dignity act in Oregon (qtd in Lynne). The regulated system of assisted suicide has shown

to not be exploitive, and therefore should be legalized throughout the United States to give

qualified patients a safe and legal choice to die.

Not only is assisted suicide safe, it can optimize the health care system. Assisted suicide

enables health care to be more ethical for terminally ill patients, in turn making health care more

efficient and economically practical. Dr. Elliot Fisher, a physician and health care researcher at

Dartmouth university, explains how Medicare can’t reject treatments based on cost, so it will, for

example, pay $40,000 for an elderly man with terminal cancer to implant a defibrillator if he

happens to have heart problems too. Many patients don’t want to be continually subject to

exhaustive treatments that modern medical technology offers, but often have little choice. After

all, prolonging life is prolonging suffering for those wanting the choice of assisted suicide. Dr.

Eric Snoey, the vice chair of emergency medicine at Highland Hospital, submits his view that,

“Although the preservation of life is paramount in medicine, the inevitability of death

necessitates a pivot at some point by patient and physician”. With assisted suicide, terminally ill

patients can navigate this pivot and end expensive, draining, and often unnecessary treatment to
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end their life predictably and peacefully. Furthermore, medical workers that care for terminally

ill patients could spend less time caring for those who simply do not want their help, and more

time helping savable patients. This makes healthcare more efficient. All in all, assisted suicide

gives more ethical options to patients and can alleviate unnecessary medical costs.

Assisted suicide also gives option to others as the planned manner of it enables organ

harvesting, which in turn saves the lives of many more people - people who actually have a

chance of being saved. To illustrate, according to the American Transplant Foundation, there are

120,000 people in the US waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant, and a lack of available organs

results in the death of 22 people everyday.(“Facts and Myths”). Organs obtained from assisted

suicide patients can help fill this gap, and has already done so. In Belgium, a 44-year-old woman

was euthanized by request after a brain stem accident, and her liver and both kidneys were

successfully transplanted into three different people, which saved their lives (Fisher). The organs

harvested from assisted suicide would help solve the critical shortage of donated organs -

donated organs that can add decades of quality life to others. To summarize, not only does

assisted suicide grant terminal patients the death that they want, it saves the lives of many other

treatable patients.

Although helping others is a benefit, the largest controversy of assisted suicide focuses on

the patient. Supporters and opposers both center their arguments around what is best for the

patient - what constitutes as help or harm. Nevertheless, over anything, it is their individual right

to choose their own fate. When this right is not given, there are dire consequences. Heather

Pratten, an advocate for the legalization of assisted suicide, recounts how her son, Nigel, was

diagnosed with a fatal brain disease that left him in distress and immense agony. For his 42nd

birthday, he requested for her to help him die. Because assisted suicide is illegal in Texas, they
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didn’t have the option for him to receive prescribed lethal drugs. So, Nigel overdosed on pills

and she smothered him with a pillow. She was first charged with murder, but later received

conditional discharge. Without the right to receive assisted suicide, heartbreaking cases like this

become a reality, cases that could have been replaced with a peaceful death surrounded by loved

ones. Many families are greatly affected by this lack of access to assisted suicide in most states

because the fear is not death, the fear is suffering. Sarah Edelman, a clinical psychiatrist, tells the

story of her father, who was diagnosed with end stage liver cancer in 2012. It was a cruel

experience for her family to be helpless through his suffering. He asked his doctors on several

occasions to help him die, but because assisted suicide is illegal in Florida, he died slowly and

painfully with “his hands strapped to a hospital bed, a tube down his throat.” These personal

stories demonstrate the horrific effects of banning assisted suicide. Families are forced to either

help end a patients’ suffering out of love or watch helplessly as their loved ones die in pain.

Heartbreaking personal stories show the extent of pain a patient and their family must endure and

highlight how it is unconstitutional to deny giving someone choice over their death. The patient

should have a right over their life, what happens to them, and how they die. Assisted suicide

provides this liberty for many and the assurance of choice for others.

In conclusion, assisted suicide has many benefits: it gives patients the option to end their

suffering and die peacefully, expands to improve health care with the economical assets, and

allows other lives to be saved by enabling an option of organ harvesting. Just as we are given the

right to to life, the right to freedom, and the right to liberty, those with terminal illnesses should

have the right of assisted suicide, to have a safe and legal option to choose how they die. This

choice liberates those in the darkest depths of disease, and with proper regulations, can empower

patients across the nation.

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Works Cited

Edelman, Sarah. "Why I Believe we should be Able to Die with Dignity." Sydney Morning

Herald, 18 Jan, 2017, pp. 20. SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks.sirs.com.

“Facts and Myths.” American Transplant Foundation,

www.americantransplantfoundation.org/about-transplant/facts-and-myths/.
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“Fast Facts (Assisted Suicide).” Wisconsin Right to Life,

wrtl.org/assisted-suicide/fast-facts-assisted-suicide/

Fisher, Elliot. “Sick In America: Americans' Views On Health Care.” NPR, NPR, 28 May 2012,

www.npr.org/2012/05/28/153860590/sick-in-america-americans-views-on-health-care.

“Greek Medicine - The Hippocratic Oath.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, National

Institutes of Health, 7 Feb. 2012, www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html.

Kelly, John B. "Say 'no' to Assisted Suicide." Boston Globe, 16 Jan, 2018, pp. A.10.

SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks.sirs.com.

Pope, Thaddeus Mason. “The New York Times Company.” The New York Times, The New York

Times, www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/10/06/

Pratten, Heather. “Dignity in Dying.” Campaign for Dignity in Dying, 4 April 2013,

www.dignityindying.org.uk/story/heather-pratten/.

Snoey, Eric. "How Much should be done to Save a Life?" Los Angeles Times, 22 May, 2016, pp.

A.23. SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks.sirs.com.

“State-by-State Guide to Physician-Assisted Suicide.” Should Euthanasia or Physician-Assisted

Suicide Be Legal?, ProCon.org,

euthanasia.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000132.

Terry, Lynne. "Oregon Aid-in-Dying Law Turns 20: Patients Face Hurdles." Statesman Journal,

27 Oct, 2017, pp. n/a. SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks.sirs.com.

Thienpont, Lieve. “Why Belgians Have It Right.” The Peaceful Pill Handbook,

www.peacefulpillhandbook.com/why-the-belgians-have-it-right/.
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“20 Years of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act.” Death With Dignity, 4 Nov. 2017,

www.deathwithdignity.org/news/2017/09/20-years-oregon-death-with-dignity-act/.