Why should Physician-Assisted Suicide be legal?
The problem is, someone’s consent to be assisted with a suicide could easily be manipulated, forged, or a physician could be bought off by impatient family members. That makes me pretty uncomfortable. I would want some safeguards, like an ethics committee, to review a physician assisted suicide request, just in case the patient’s rights aren’t the primary motivation. I do respect a person’s right to end his/her life (the law doesn’t), but others can take advantage.
What a sticky mess. I can’t say that I would vote either way for it to be legal or illegal. For legal, I would say that a person has the right to die, and if their quality of life is diminishing they have the right to take their own life (Depending on beliefs. This is just from my own standpoint.) and if they want to get it over with, they shoudl do what makes them happy. I also think that with a physician’s help they can administer medicines that might make their passing more comfortable, like being put down by a vet. On the flip side, I think something like that could be exploited and turned into a nasty situation where it doesn’t have to be. Especially if there were no prior records of the transaction to occur and the doctor could murder and say it was Physician-assisted suicide, or on the flip side the family could not know the patient requested the assistance and be accused of murder. I don’t vote either way, but maybe I provoke some throught for others…
