Should Physician –Assisted Suicide Be Legal?

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Should Physician-Assisted Suicide be Legal? Sharon Cook PHI 103: Informal Logic Instructor Jill Murray October 1, 2012 Should Physician –Assisted Suicide be Legal? Physician assisted suicide has been a controversial topic for over a decade. This is still ongoing right now today because in today's society it brings up many ethical questions such as who is the true owner of our lives. Should relieving suffering always be the highest priority or does suffering occur for a reason? Is suicide a purely individual choice? The answers to these questions depend on whom you ask because each individual has his or her own personal opinion. My purpose for writing this paper is to describe benefits and disadvantages of physician-assisted suicide and to show what ethical reasoning there is behind each point. Physician assisted suicide should be a right given to all people who are suffering from a painful, degenerative, or deadly condition. Anyone who might never enjoy the luxuries of living a happy and healthy life again. Though several ongoing debates are against physician-assisted suicide, ethicists are still not the one who is responsible to make this decision. Patients have the right to free will and human dignity that gives them the right to choose physician assisted suicide. Being able to have this choice allows the patient to maintain some control over their devastating situation. People have different opinions and the quality of life is a very personal one. When a health care professional tries to convince a patient to live they are acting as if they are their parent's telling them what to do. Patients usually trust their physicians and what they say can be wrong and persuasive. Physicians do not like to admit when they cannot diagnose something or fix a problem. Therefore, one's pride could be deeply hurt with physician assisted suicide because it

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