Arguments against Assisted Suicide
Assisted Suicide is one of the most highly controversial topics of the recent times. This phenomenon is mostly raised when a person, mostly terminally ill or disabled, commits suicide with the assistance of a physician or maybe with the assistance from a medical professional. It can be sometimes confused with the term euthanasia, however; the basic difference lies within the process (Buijsen, 2018). In euthanasia, the person assisting the lethal process of killing is in control, whereas in assisted suicide, the person willing to die is in complete control of the process and completes the process of suicide themselves with assistance from the healthcare professional. In this case, the person Matthew Donelly wanted to die and for that he was assisted by his brother, Harold, which was a case of assisted suicide. The entire topic of discussion lies in whether or not the concept of Assisted Suicide is legally and socially acceptable or not on which Harold’s guilt or innocence can be justified (Barone, Hentoff & Murphy, 2014). It is to be mentioned that Matthew was already dying and under a lot of pain due to the harmful effects of X-rays which had resulted him losing his eyesight, nose, fingers, left hand, part of his jaw and lot of other body parts and internal organs.
The thesis statement in this argument is that, when a person is terminally ill or disabled with no hope of being recovered from their condition and can further sink into a worsened condition, it is viable that only then the person should be put out of his or her misery with an assisted suicide. Any other state of the person, like just the thought of attempting suicide would not be accepted and the person assisting to the suicide would be charged as guilty. The following essay would discuss on this argument and would focus on proving the thesis statement right.
There are various arguments on whether or not the assisted suicide should be accepted both by the law and the society equally. Various arguments have been countering the matter of assisted suicide to be ousted from the law as well as the society completely (Radbruch et al., 2016). These counter arguments are stating that the medical personnel who are assisting these terminally ill or disabled people with their suicides should be considered as equal as cold-blooded murderers and they should be trialled with as much less mercy than the murderers are trialled.
These arguments do not acknowledge assisted suicide as a legalized act because; it is believed that given the condition of the medical advancements, people have been dying less and even the people who are afflicted with fatal diseases are being able to be saved now (Nelson, 2015). Sustaining lives have become much easier than it was before; even for the people who are affected with terminal diseases have hopes to be saved given the latest condition of advanced medical environment. Even diseases like advanced stages of cancer now has cure.
There are three well explained arguments that counter the thesis statement and they can be stated as follows:
- If medical and healthcare personnel who have been assisting the suicide it would do more harm than it does good. It turns a professional healer into a killer.
- The legalization of the assisted suicide further makes the safeguarding of the ill and weak people to be inadequate (Ellis, 2016). They become vulnerable as they are treated like chattel for offering death as a last resort.
- Societal approval to killing is what is delivered to the legalization of the assisted deaths. This can further give acceptance to the practise as an incentive to the cost saving options.
Counter-Argument: Assisted Suicide should be considered illegal
Although there have been incidents recorded and reported about the assisted killings in which, out of mercy the medical personnel have helped a terminally ill person into committing suicide (Gamondi et al., 2015). This is the fact that the counter argument wants to state. The fact that the medical practitioners are expected to provide hope to the ill and the disabled, they are falling victim to their own emotions and are helping these people into committing suicide. Suicide itself is a legally chided crime and according to the counter argument, assisting to an illegal act should thus be chided as well.
In the thesis statement, it has been previously stated that only when a person who is terminally ill or disabled and has no medical hope of being elevated further from their condition should be allowed to commit suicide and can be assisted for the act as well.
Elaborately speaking, only when a person has no further hope for recovery after all the medical procedures have been tried on from the terminal disease or the condition of disability; only then the person should be not considered to be charged as guilty or the act should be called illegal when the patient commits suicide (Wand et al., 2018). In this situation, the medical personnel assisting the person throughout the entire process should not be considered to be charged guilty as well. The entire act can be termed as legally permissible given the stated conditions.
It can be argued about speaking against the counter argument which states that in any condition assisted suicide would be considered as illegal and the person assisting the suicide should be termed as a killer no less. This is because, a person or arguably a patient, who cannot be medically elevated or improved from the condition he or she is at the point of time is accepting death in order to be free from the excruciating pain he or she is experiencing now. When there is no hope of recovery and death is the only outcome of the entire process, it cannot be imagined how physically and emotionally degrading the person might be feeling at that point of time (Hamric et al., 2018). It is a legal procedure that the person who is going through the entire process of medication is made aware of the condition he or she is in including the chances of their recovery. It is unimaginable to guess the amount of pain and thus it is a basic human nature to put a person out of their misery when there is no chance of recovery.
The case study can be taken as evidence against the argument in this matter. The patient Matthew Donelly had been experimenting with X-rays for the past 30 odd years and thus this entire body had been mangled as a side effect; leaving his body riddled with skin cancer (Battin, 2015). He had experienced the loss of his nose, his left arm, the fingers on his right hand, and even parts of his jaw. The condition in which he was in was deteriorating; even he was losing his eyesight. At that point of time when this terminal disease had left him with no chance of recovery, he had plead to die which was left unanswered unless his brother, who was a medical personnel had assisted him to commit suicide in the hospital he was admitted him. One of the main reasons for this argument is that patients who are terminally or disabled often experience a lot of pain and suffering. This argument is based on the idea that it is the moral responsibility of the healthcare personnel to help patients avoid pain and suffering no matter what it takes to help them do so (Jordan, 2017). This incident showcases how the person had no hope to live neither it was medically possible. In this situation, freeing him of his misery was the right thing to do as per individual perspective.
Thesis Statement and Arguments for Assisted Suicide
Therefore, it can be well established from the arguments stated above that the thesis statement can be proven right against the presented counter argument. Even by the law, under Act of 2001, assisted suicide can be acclaimed as legal which states the fact that the conditions presented as above be followed (Deschepper, Distelmans & Bilsen, 2014). Under specific conditions and procedures, the assisted suicide and the entire procedure can be consummated as legal with the medical personnel assisting the suicide to be free from all legal procedure on humanitarian grounds and would not be referred to as a cold-blooded criminal or a killer.
Thus, it can be concluded from the above essay that the entire procedure of assisted suicide can be considered to be free of all the legal procedures and can be considered as a legalized process but only under certain conditions where the terminally ill or disabled patient cannot be elevated from their sinking condition and under specific procedures of the assistance. It should not be considered legal if the procedures as stated above are not followed. The condition of the person should be deteriorating and the person assisting with the moral responsibility of assisting the person for suicide should follow certain rules for the suicide. It is recommended that although the procedure should be termed as a legalized suicide, it should be kept under total medical assistance and the healthcare person should keep no stone unturned to elevate or try to improve the condition of the patient who is terminally ill or disabled. Only when medical assistance fails and the patient expresses the urge to die for putting themselves off the excruciating pain, only then the healthcare personnel should assist to the procedure.
References
Barone, E., Hentoff, N., & Murphy, B. (2014). of Article: See Which States Allow Assisted Suicide. Time.
Battin, M. P. (2015). Physician–Assisted Suicide: Safe, Legal, Rare?. In Physician Assisted Suicide (pp. 63-72). Routledge.
Buijsen, M. (2018). A Life Fulfilled: Should There Be Assisted Suicide for Those Who Are Done with Living?. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 27(3), 366-375.
Deschepper, R., Distelmans, W., & Bilsen, J. (2014). Requests for euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide on the basis of mental suffering: vulnerable patients or vulnerable physicians?. JAMA psychiatry, 71(6), 617-618.
Ellis, A. D. (2016). Measuring the Disability Rights Framing Effects on Public Opinion about Assisted Suicide: Elite Interviews and an Experimental Survey (Doctoral dissertation, The Claremont Graduate University).
Gamondi, C., Pott, M., Forbes, K., & Payne, S. (2015). Exploring the experiences of bereaved families involved in assisted suicide in Southern Switzerland: a qualitative study. BMJ supportive & palliative care, 5(2), 146-152.
Hamric, A. B., Schwarz, J. K., Cohen, L., & Mahon, M. (2018). Assisted Suicide/Aid in Dying: What Is the Nurse’s Role?. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 118(5), 50-59.
Jordan, M. (2017). The Ethical Considerations of Physician-assisted Suicide. Dialogue & Nexus, 4(1), 12.
Nelson, B. (2015). In right?to?die debate, a new focus on practicality: As laws legalizing physician?assisted suicide gain ground, physicians consider conscientious objection, training, oversight, and access to end?of?life care. Cancer cytopathology, 123(7), 385-386.
Paterson, C. (2017). Assisted suicide and euthanasia: a natural law ethics approach. Routledge.
Radbruch, L., Leget, C., Bahr, P., Müller-Busch, C., Ellershaw, J., De Conno, F., … & board members of the EAPC. (2016). Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: a white paper from the European Association for Palliative Care. Palliative medicine, 30(2), 104-116.
Wand, A. P., Peisah, C., Draper, B., & Brodaty, H. (2018). The Nexus between Elder Abuse, Suicide, and Assisted Dying: The Importance of Relational Autonomy and Undue Influence. Macquarie LJ, 18, 79.
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