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Running head: Ethicality of Assisted Suicide

Ethicality of Assisted Suicide

Braydon Bird
Dixie State University

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Ethicality of Assisted Suicide

Assisted Suicide
In recent years there has been much debate over the ethics behind healthcare
assisted euthanasia, or assisted suicide in the United States. Currently such practice is
illegal in the majority of the country with exception to Washington, Oregon, California,
and Vermont. With the continuation of health care reform, an ever rising elderly
population, and advances in healthcare which allows for better treatment of medical
conditions and possibly longer life, many feel that todays western medicine should also
focus on the mitigation of a persons suffering allowing them to choose assisted suicide
when deteriorating health, mentation, or uncontrolled pain threaten their quality of life.
This issue has firm standing proponents arguing on both side of the question of Does
a person have the right to decide when they will die?. This paper will detail and
discuss arguments raised from both sides of this debate as well as the personal
passing of the Death With Dignity Act allowing for residents of the state to receive a
prescription for medication to be taken at home which will lead to the patients passing.
This bill also laid down very strict guidelines for those seeking to be approved for these
medications. Such guidelines included:

The need for patients to request the medication in front of two witnesses on two
separate occasions with a set amount of time between each request. This allows
a patient time to consider their request and ensure that the first request was not

made under duress or impulsivity.

The patient must not be mentally ill.
Two physicians must approve the request, and both must agree that the patient
most likely has less than 6 months to live. Meaning a vast majority of those

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Ethicality of Assisted Suicide
seeking assisted suicide have terminal diagnosis (i.e. cancer, ALS, end stage
liver/renal disease). (Drum, 2016, p. 29).
People who would meet these criteria are often not only making the decision of
when to die, but also how to die. A terminal cancer patient may very well have to endure
countless days, weeks or months of excruciating pain often requiring high doses of
opiate pain medications which cause sedation among other side effects and further
reduced a persons quality in life. A person suffering from ALS will most likely spend
their last days or weeks in a hospital or bedridden at home requiring loved ones such as
spouses, and children to care for them, feed them, medicate them, and often change
their soiled briefs. Those who argue for such bills as Oregons Death With Dignity Act to
be legalized nationwide have a viewpoint that in some conditions allowing a patient to
choose death over agonizing pain, or dehumanizing dependence of care , often times
from loved ones, is the most moral and ethical option.
Taking this idea further a less common argument calls for assisted suicide with
greatly diminished guidelines. This ideology mainly refers to the elderly population and
suggests that even those without terminal conditions suffer from a reduced quality of
life. Many elderly patients find themselves struggling with multiple medical conditions,
suffering with decreased mobility, and the inability to care or provide for themselves any
longer. Some may find themselves living in care centers, or relying on family to care for
them. Many sit at home day after day waiting for a visiting from a home health worker or
family member to assist them. Elderly people often deplete their lives savings paying to
live in long-term care centers, or hiring in home assistance. This argument again uses
the stance that requiring dehumanizing dependence on others is less ethical than

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Ethicality of Assisted Suicide
allowing a person who has lived a full life the choice of ending it with dignity at a time
they have chosen for themselves. (Tomlinson, 2014, pp. 16-18).
Lastly there is the stance which finds all instances of assisted suicide to be unethical
and unjust. For some many religious teachings influence this view due to teachings of
all life as a gift and any form of suicide is considered a form of a sin for which one may
be punished. Others pull arguments of patients being given terminal diagnosiss and
then going on to live many years past them, stating that medicine is an unsure practice
and by allowing a person to choose when to end it in fear of pain or suffering that
person may indeed be losing years of quality life. Furthermore the world of medicine
and treatments is an ever changing and progressing one in which new better treatments
and possibly cures to conditions are continually being achieved which may allow
improved prognosis for some even after being given a terminal diagnosis. Interestingly,
in a research study which focused on nurses and their opinions of assisted suicide
critical care nurses showed the highest support for legalization, while palliative care and
hospices nurses showed the lowest. (Evans, 2015, p. 631) This may suggest that those
who spend the most time with terminal patients and who are most properly equipped
with the right knowledge and tools are able to see and provide what they consider a
good quality of life, as well as a dignified death in comparison to those who are
attempting to provide treatments as opposed to comfort.
For this author my opinion upon this subject has been from by my own experiences
as a Registered Nurse as well as my own experiences as a person. I feel the same way
about the issue of assisted suicide as I do most topics in life and that is this: While I may
or may not choose such an act for myself or any of my loved ones I would also not

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Ethicality of Assisted Suicide
restrict that choice from being made by another. I do not feel that it is anybody elses
role to tell a person how much pain they should be required to endure, to tell them that
they must spend months being bed ridden being turned and cleaned by those they love,
or to tell someone they must suffer through a terminal illness until their body finally
shuts down allowing them to finally be at peace. These decisions should only be made
by those in these situations by whatever beliefs and principals they so personally have.
I do feel that guidelines should be in place requiring certain conditions to be present, or
not present (such as terminal illness, diminished quality of life, absence of mental
illness, etc) in order for a person to participate in healthcare assisted suicide. My
opinion on this matter and on most controversial matters in life is based on the
framework of the moral and ethical concept of autonomy. This concept is one I also find
most fundamentally important and influential in my nursing practice. Autonomy suggests
that we should allow for others to make their own choices when it comes to the care
they choose to receive regardless of our own personal beliefs or moral convictions. By
allowing others to guide me in the care I provide I can be assured they in their
perspective they are truly receiving the best care possible.

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References
Drum, K. (2016). My life to leave. Mother Jones, 41(1), 26-60.
Evans, L. (2015). Nurses attitudes to assisted suicide: Sociodemographic factors.
British Journal or Nursing, 24(12), 629-632.
Huxtable, R. (2014). Splitting the difference? Principled compromise and assisted dying.
Bioehtics, 28(9), 472-480.
Tomlinson, E., & Stott, J. (2014). Assisted dying in dementia: A systematic review of the
international literature on the attitudes of health professionals, patients, carers
and the public, and the factors associdated with these. International Journal of
Geriatric Psychiatry, 30(1), 10-20.