Research Paper on Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS)

Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS)
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Abstract
With the growing number of patients in intensive care units as well as the rise in costs of treatment, more individuals are inclined to believe that physician-assisted suicide is the best option when a person is terminally ill. However, the practice goes against the ethics in medicine as physicians are meant to offer medical assistance to help patients recover from illnesses rather than help them end their lives. Physician-assisted suicide can break the trust between patients and physicians and resultantly, doctors will be unable to fully provide quality care to patients. Proponents of physician-assisted suicide claim that the practice is in line with the rights of patients as some individuals with severe illnesses undergo great pain, thus ending their lives would be most appropriate. However, practicing PAS would not be ethical and might deprive the patient of undergoing other helpful practices such as palliative care. Therefore, physician-assisted suicide should not be condoned.
Keywords: Physician-assisted suicide, PAS, Palliative care, Euthanasia, Suicide.
Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS)
The argument of whether patients who are severely ill are entitled to a doctor’s assistance to end their suffering by ending their life has been argued for years now. A large number of patients who are nearing the end of their lives are normally admitted to intensive care units. Many of these patients are open to having their physicians or caregivers end their misery by ending their life. However, the act of physician-assisted suicide is prohibited in most western nations. For instance, many jurisdictions have banned physician-assisted death, with the judicial application of several general statutes or using certain statutory provisions.
Conventionally, physician-assisted suicide refers to the act of a patient voluntarily self-administering a prescription of lethal medication. There has been a rise in interest from the public to legalize physician-assisted suicide in recent years regardless of its ethical prohibitions. Majority of these individuals are mostly concerned about the means of their death and the emphasis by society and medicine on cure and intervention has on most occasions come at the expense of good end-of-life care (O’Rourke, O’Rourke, & Hudson, 2017). Some concerned individuals have strongly advocated that physician-assisted suicide should be considered as a legal form of ending one’s life. The argument of whether PAS should be legalized is most compelling, especially when considering policy, clinical practice, and substantive ethics. On a professional level, physician-assisted suicide can adversely affect the trust in the profession and the relationship between the patients and caregivers and most importantly, it alters the role of medical professionals in the society (O’Rourke, O’Rourke, & Hudson, 2017). More so, the principles that are mostly at stake over the issue of physician-assisted suicide underlie the responsibilities of medicine over other concerns, as well as the duties of physicians in providing care which is guided by ethics, evidence, and clinical judgment. Instead of focusing on legalizing physician-assisted suicide, society should put much focus on addressing the needs and sufferings of patients and their families by improving access to palliative care and hospice. PAS should therefore not be legalized as it is unethical and goes against the fundamental tenet of medicine.
Interpretation
Physician-assisted suicide is the intended termination of an individual’s life by self-administering a lethal fluid with or without the direct help of a physician (Goligher et al., 2017). Physician-assisted suicide involves offering a medical prescription to a competent patient to use with the main purpose of ending their life. Physician-assisted suicide is mostly abbreviated as PAS, whereas in the UK it is regarded as doctor-assisted suicide. Suicide involves ending one’s life intentionally. The view of suicide in the society is dependent on ethical norms, culture, religion, and the situation that led to the incident. Worldwide, more than 800,000 individuals commit suicide on an annual basis, whereas more than 39,000 people commit suicide in the U.S alone (World Health Organization, 2018). Individuals who commit suicide can bring devastating effects to their families, and as a result, a majority of suicide survivors go through painful and conflicting emotions. One of the many life circumstances that might lead to suicide attempts is the current discharge of an individual from a psychiatric hospital, imagined or real loss, and sudden emotional changes. Another term for physician-assisted suicide is euthanasia. Most physicians assisted suicide practices are minimally painful or painless.
The Supreme Court in the U.S ruled against physician-assisted suicide as a constitutional right. However, the court gave room for individual states to enact laws that would allow the practice to be carried out. By 2016, Oregon, Washington, and Vermont were the only states that had laws which allowed for physician-assisted suicide. On the other hand, under English law, assisted suicide and euthanasia is illegal. As stated under the Suicide Act (1961), assisted suicide is against the law and is punishable by approximately fourteen years in prison (NHS, 2017). Euthanasia can either be non-voluntary or voluntary. Voluntary euthanasia is the case where a person makes a conscious choice to end their life and requests for help doing it. Non-voluntary euthanasia is the case whereby someone else makes the decision for an individual, especially when the patient is unable to give their consent to treatment mostly because they are in a coma. This can be triggered by the fact that the ill individual had previously expressed a wish for their life to be ended in case they ended up in such a situation. Compared to non-physician assisted suicide, physician-assisted suicide seems to be more offensive. However, the acceptability of both methods to end life seems to increase as people continue to grow older. Also, individuals who experience severe medical illnesses are more inclined to support physician-assisted suicide.
The controversy over the issue of physician-assisted suicide is mostly because of the common understanding that the word suicide is greatly associated with irrational behavior and mental illness. Medical practices should, therefore, prevent such practices instead of condoning them. As for terminally ill patients, they perceive ending their life as the best option for putting an end to their sufferings. When viewed from this angle, it might seem as if such actions can be self-preventive, and which is opposite of suicide. The society is completely divided on the opinion of whether physician-assisted suicide should be legalized. On the one hand, individuals seem to understand cases of severe suffering despite the presence of excellent palliative care, where the need for physician-assisted death seems to be the best option. On the other hand, individuals also fear that when legalized, physician-assisted suicide might be used as a detour instead of going through palliative care or even as a means of getting rid of the suffering of severely ill patients by ending the life of the suffering individual. Because patients might decide to skip palliative care and instead opt for quick death might limit the attempts by the caregivers to save the life of the patients. Palliative care should be the first option for patients who are in great suffering and for their families as well (Rosa, Hope & Matzo, 2018).
Rationale
There are a number of compelling arguments that can be made against the practice of physician-assisted suicide, mostly because of its adverse implications for the patients and the professionals. Physician-assisted suicide should not be legalized because it raises clinical, ethical, and other issues.
An Insult to Medical Practice and denies Patients their Right to Life
Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) greatly contradicts the role of physicians as a trusted healer and professional. The role of a physician is to use their knowledge and healing skills to assist the patient instead of killing them (O’Rourke, O’Rourke, & Hudson, 2017). A good comparison would be that of chemotherapy and PAS. Chemotherapy involves professional expertise and training and is calibrated for specific circumstances and illnesses that the patient is suffering from. However, offering PAS does not require a similar level of expertise since it can be similarly administered to every individual. More so, pain relief also involves prescribing medication to palliate symptoms that might cause death, whereas PAS is prescribing an injection that would cause death. Based on these examples, PAS seems to remove the patient from the living world instead of sustaining their life.
Physicians should not administer PAS just because the person asked for it. Instead, the role of a doctor is to offer healthcare assistance to those sick and do their best to preserve the health and life of these individuals (O’Rourke, O’Rourke, & Hudson, 2017). Part of their obligation also requires physicians to assist patients to endure their pain as well as advanced loss of bodily function...