1. THEME: TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICAL ISSUES
Assisted Suicide: Multiple Perspective
Should Doctors Be Allowed to Help Terminally III Patients Commit Suicide?
YES NO
It would be great comfort to people who If it is a question of someone’s wanting
face terminal illness to know they could get the right to die, I say jump off a building. But
help to die if their suffering became as soon as you bring in somebody else to help
unbearable. All pain cannot be controlled, and you, it changes the equation. Suicide is legally
it is arrogant for anybody to say that it can. available to people in this country. Just don not
Quality of life decisions are sole right of the ask a doctor to help you do it. That would
individual. violate the traditions of medicine and raise
It is nonsense to say that death should doubts about the role of the physician.
not be part of a doctor’s job - it already is. We One of my worries is that people will be
all die. Death is a part of medicine. One of a manipulated by a doctor’s suggestion suicide.
doctor’s jobs is to write death certificates. So A lot of seriously ill people already feel they
this idea of the doctor as superhealer is a load are a burden because they are costing their
of nonsense. The fact is that it is not easy to families money. It would be easy for a family
commit suicide in your own. It is very hard for to insinuate, “while we love you, Grandmother,
decent citizens to get deadly drugs. Even if and we are willing to spend all our money and
they do, there is the fear that the drugs won’t not send the kids to college, would not it be
work. There are hundreds of dying people who better if…?” There is no coercion there, but
could not lift their hand to their mouth with a you build on somebody’s guilt. We would have
cup of coffee, let alone a cup of drugs, they a whole new class of people considering
need assistance. suicide who had not thought about it before.
Of course, people who are depressed or Then, too, I don not believe that you
who feel they are a weight on their families could successfully regulate this practice. The
should be counseled and helped to live. But relationship between the doctor and the patients
you have to separate those instances from begins in confidentiality. If they decide
people who are dying, whose bodies are giving together that they don not want anybody to
up on them. If you think there is a cure around know, there is no way the government can

2. the corner for your malady, then please wait for regulate it. The presumption is that physicians
it. That is your choice. But sometimes a person would only be helping people commit suicide
realizes that her life is coming to an end, as in after everything else had failed to end their
the case of my wife, whose doctor said, “There suffering. But a lot of people won’t want to be
is nothing else we can do.” that far along. None of the proposed regulations
We are not talking about cases in which takes into account a person who is not suffering
a depressed person will come to a doctor and now, but who says, “I don’t want to suffer in
ask to be killed. Under the law the Hemlock the future. Let me commit suicide now.” I can
Society is trying to get passed, the doctor must imagine a doctor who would say, “Yes, we’re
say no to depressed people. A candidate for going to make sure that you don’t have to
assisted suicide has to be irreversibly, suffer at all.”
terminally, hopelessly ill and judged to be so
by two doctors.
Derek Humphry is the founder of the Hemlock Daniel Callahan is a bioethicist and director of
Society and author of Final Exit, a book the Hastings Center, a medical ethics think
advising terminally ill people on how to tank in Briarcliff Manor, New York.
commit suicide.
Source: - Authors: Derek Humphry & Daniel Callahan
- From “Topics for Today – Third Edition – Lorraine C.Smith & Nancy Nici Mare.
Assisted Suicide Should It Be Legal
WebMD In March 1998, an Oregon woman dying of breast cancer asked her physician to
prescribe a drug that would allow her to end her life. The doctor agreed. Later in the month she
took the medication. With that action, she became the first person in the United States to commit
suicide with the help of a doctor legally.
This has come to be known as physicianassisted suicide. A physician honors a patients
voluntary request for a lethal dose of medication, which the patient later administers to him or
herself. Its legal only in the state of Oregon, and has been only since late 1997.

3. A few other states are making efforts to legalize assisted suicide. But soon Congress may
put a stop to it everywhere.
The pros and cons
The issue of physicianassisted suicide is emotional and controversial it ranks right up there with
abortion. According to Dr. Clarence H. Braddock III, a faculty member of the University of
Washingtons departments of medicine and medical history and ethics, the arguments in favor of
legalizing assisted suicide generally run along these lines
People should be able to control their own lives.
Some terminally ill patients are allowed to end their lives by refusing medical treatments; in all
fairness, those who dont have that option should be allowed to choose death.
Death is a compassionate way to relieve unbearable suffering.
Legal or not, assisted suicides occur, and it would be better if they were brought into the open.
The arguments against legalization, Braddock says, usually go something like this
Taking a life under any circumstances is immoral.
Assisted suicide has great potential for abuse. People without family support or adequate
finances, as well as the depressed, could be pressured to choose death.
Physicians can be wrong about estimating how much time a patient has left, causing unnecessary
deaths.
The public will lose its confidence in the medical profession if physicians get into the business of
helping people kill themselves. An ageold debate
Physicians have been divided over the issue of assisted suicide since the birth of Western
medicine some 2,000 years ago.
Source:- Author: Michael Pretzer
-Http://articles.cnn.com/2000-01-25/health/assisted.suicide.wmd_1_physicianassisted-
suicide-terminally-ill-patients-deadly-drug?_s=PM:HEALTH

4. World Laws In Asssited Suicide
Various forms of medically assisted dying and/or assisted suicide for the terminally or hopelessly
ill competent adult have been approved by 2010 in the following ten states and nations. Each has
its own rules and guidelines. All but Switzerland forbid foreigners coming for this type of help to
die.
• Switzerland (1940)
• Oregon (1994)
• Colombia (1997)
• Albania (1999)
• The Netherlands (2002)
• Belgium (2003)
• Washington (2008)
• Montana (2009)
• Luxembourg (2008)
Also in 2010 England & Wales announced first prosecutorial policy statement about who will, or
will not, risk criminal charges when assisting a suicide.
North America
United States
Visit this page for information on assisted suicide laws in the United States including Oregon,
Washington, and other U.S. states.
Canada
The law in Canada is almost the same as in England -- it is a crime to assist a suicide, punishable
by up to 14 years imprisonment. The offence is rarely prosecuted and a 2002 significant case
brought against Evelyn Martens in BC resulted in acquittal.
On April 21, 2010, the Canadian House of Commons rejected a Bloc Québécois MP’s legislation
to permit assisted suicide in Canada under strict conditions. Bill C-384 was defeated on second
reading by a 228-59 margin.
The bill would have allowed doctors to avoid murder and manslaughter charges for helping
terminally ill people or those in severe chronic pain to die. The bill stipulated that a physician
could help someone to "die with dignity" provided nine conditions were met, including that the

5. person was 18 or older, suffered from a terminal illness or unrelenting physical or mental pain,
had made two written requests to die at least 10 days apart, and had their diagnosis confirmed by
a second doctor.
Mexico
In Mexico, on April 22, 2008, the Senate voted 70-0 in favour of legalizing passive euthanasia.
This concept allows doctors to withdraw life-sustaining medication from patients, but not to, for
instance, administer poisons. (Assisted suicide or active euthanasia occurs when an individual
who is not physically capable of ending his or her own life requests the help of a physician to do
so.)
The Mexican bill legalizes passive euthanasia -- the disconnection of life support equipment --
when the patient is in palliative care and has been given less than six months to live. Doctors
have to act with consent from the patient or the patient’s family. The regulation stipulates that the
patient will have the option of "voluntarily requesting the suspension of healing treatment and
selecting integral care to control pain."
Europe
United Kingdom
In England and Wales there is a possibility of up to 14 years imprisonment for anybody assisting
a suicide. Oddly, suicide itself is not a crime. The first prosecutorial policy statement about who
will, or will not, risk criminal charges when assisting a suicide, was announced by England &
Wales in 2010. Like France, there are laws banning a publication if it leads to a suicide or
assisted suicide. But 'Final Exit' can be seen in bookstores in both countries.
Suicide has never been illegal under Scotland law. There is no Scots authority of whether it is
criminal to help another to commit suicide, and this has never been tested in court.
The killing of another at his own request is murder, as the consent of the victim is irrelevant in
such a case. A person who assists another to take their own life, whether by giving advice or by
the provision of the means of committing suicide, might be criminally liable on a number of other
grounds such as: recklessly endangering human life, culpable homicide (recklessly giving advice
or providing the means, followed by the death of the victim), or wicked recklessness.
Sweden

6. While it is correct that Sweden has no law specifically proscribing assisted suicide, the
prosecutors might charge an assister with manslaughter - and do. In 1979 the Swedish right-to-die
leader Berit Hedeby went to prison for a year for helping a man with MS to die.
Norway
Neighbouring Norway has criminal sanctions against assisted suicide by using the charge
"accessory to murder". In cases where consent was given and the reasons compassionate, the
courts pass lighter sentences. A recent law commission voted down de-criminalizing assisted
suicide by a 5-2 vote.
A retired Norwegian physician, Christian Sandsdalen, was found guilty of wilful murder in 2000.
He admitted giving an overdose of morphine to a woman chronically ill after 20 years with MS
who begged for his help. It cost him his medical license but he was not sent to prison. He
appealed the case right up to the Supreme Court and lost every time. Dr. Sandsdalen died a year
ago at 82 and, curiously, his funeral was packed with Norway's dignitaries.
Denmark
Denmark has no laws permitting assisted suicide, despite reports that it does.
Germany
Germany has had no penalty for the action since 1751, although it rarely happens there due to the
hangover taboo caused by Nazi mass murders, plus powerful, contemporary, church influences.
Direct killing by euthanasia is a crime. In 2000 a German appeal court cleared a Swiss clergyman
of assisted suicide because there was no such offence, but convicted him of bringing the drugs
into the country. There was no imprisonment.
France
France does not have a specific law banning assisted suicide, but such a case could be prosecuted
under 223-6 of the Penal Code for failure to assist a person in danger. Convictions are rare and
punishments minor. France bans all publications that advise on suicide - 'Final Exit' has been
banned since 1991 but few nowadays take any notice of the order.
Italy
In Italy the action is legally forbidden.
Asia & Pacific
Japan

7. Japan has medical voluntary euthanasia approved by a high court in 1962 in the Yamagouchi
case, but instances are extremely rare, seemingly because of complicated taboos on suicide, dying
and death in that country.
New Zealand
New Zealand forbids assistance under 179 of the New Zealand Crimes Act, 1961, but cases are
rare and the penalties lenient.
Australia
The Northern Territory of Australia had voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide for nine
months until the Federal Parliament repealed the law in 1997. Only four people were able to use
it. Other states have attempted to change the law, so far unsuccessfully.
Source: - http://www.finalexit.org/assisted_suicide_world_laws_page2.html
Critical Responses
“For years, doctors have been prohibited from assisting patients in taking their own lives.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian gained world attention by assisting in several suicides to dying patients; he
was sentenced to over 60 years for his efforts, despite the gratitude of the patients and their
families. Recent laws in Oregon and the U.S have started a trend of legalization. But some, most
notably the U.S Attorney General’s office, are determined to prevent the laws from going
through”( http://www.balancedpolitics.org/assisted_suicide.htm).
In this paper I am going to talk about the pros and the cons of assisted suicide are presented
by proponents and opponents of this controversial medical issue, and assisted suicide laws around
the world.
When people see the word “assisted suicide” or “euthanasia”, they see the meaning of the
word in two different lights. “Assisted suicide” for some carriers a negative connotation; it is the
same as murder. For others, however, “assisted suicide" is the act of putting someone to death
painlessly, or allowing a person suffering from an incurable and painful disease or condition to
die by withholding extreme medical measures. After studying both sides of the issue; however,

8. they find that some are for it because of their compassion and respect for the dying; others are
against because of religious and moral reasons.
In the article “ Should Doctors Be Allowed to Help Terminally III Patients Commit
Suicide?”, two authors, Derek Humphry and Daniel Callahan”, give contradictory opinions to
expain why people have diffirent attitudes to assited suicide.
There can be numerous of pros to assistance suicide. Image a love one sustaining a
fractured pelvis in an automobile accident. A few days later her lungs seems to fill up, her urine
stops, her heart develops dangerous rhythm disturbances. So there she was: in coma, on dialysis,
on a breathing machine, her heartbeat maintained with an electrical device. ..We know it would
surely be fatal. Many terminally patients who are in the final stages of their lives have requested
doctors to aid them in exercising active euthanasia. It is sad to realize that these people are great
agony and that to them the only hope of living that agony to a half is through assisted suicide. “It
would great comfort to people who face terminal illness to know they could get help to die if their
suffering became unbearable. All pain cannot be controlled” ( from a book advising terminally ill
people on how to commit suicide by Derek Humphry).
Another reason for supporters of legislation legalizing assisted suicide is that we ourselves have
an obligation to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings and to respect their dignity.
Excruciating painful and terminal conditions and diseases have made them only look forward to
lives filled with more suffering, degradation and deterioration. “When such people beg for a
merciful end to their pain and indignity, it is cruel and inhumane to refuse their pleas.
Compassion demands that we comply and cooperate” ( Dr.Francis Moore, National Academy of
Sciences).
Next, it is argued that all persons have a moral right to choose freely what they will do with their
lives as long as they inflict no harm on others. This right of free choice includes the right to end
one’s life when we choose. Since 1961, suicide has been legal in many states and nations.
Helping someone who wants to die in a peaceful, painless way should also be legal. As a recent
case of disabled rugby player Daniel James showed, hundreds of British people have traveled
abroad for an assisted suicide and the Crown Prosecution Service cannot prosecute the people
who help them.
Furthermore, “ the majority of British people, about 86 percent, are in favor of legalising
euthanasia”, according to a recent YouGov survey. Ronald Dworkin, author of Life’s Dominion,

9. says that ““many people . . . want to save their relatives the expense of keeping them pointlessly
alive . . .”(193). If terminal patients have the option of assisted suicide, they can ease the
damaging financial effects of hospital care on their families, and preserve the individual right of
people to determine their own fate. The hospital costs skyrocket, only a few affluent terminal
patients can afford to prolong their lives. “The cost of maintaining [a dying person]. . . has been
estimated as ranging from about two thousand to ten thousand dollars a month” (Dworkin 187).
On the other side of the issue; however, people who opposed any measures permitting
assisted suicide do not believe that the terminally ill have the right to end their suffering.
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, Judge Reinhardt ruled on this issue by saying
that “ A competent, terminally – ill adult, having lived nearly the full measure of his life, has a
strong liberty interest in choosing a dignified and humane death rather than being reduced at the
end of his existence to a childlike state of helplessness, diapered, sedated, incompetent” ( qtd. in
Beck 36). This ruling is the strongest defense for the right to assisted suicide. It is an inherent
right. No man or woman should ever suffer because he or she is denied the right. The terminally
ill also have rights like normal, healthy citizens do and they cannot be denied the right not to
suffer.
In addition, opponents of assisted suicide claim that society has a moral duty to protect and to
preserve all life. To allow people to assist others in destroying their lives violates a fundamental
duty we have to respect human life. A society committed to preserving and protecting life should
not commission people to destroy it.
Nobody should be able to choose when and how they die. The writer feels that life is something
that is valuable, even when people can not move around themselves, or can not do all things for
themselves. Life is not just something that everyone inherits. People were given life for a reason,
and whether that reason is to work through a terminal illness or to make it through life without
any health problems, nobody should be able to choose their life to death. Someone who fights
through a terminal illness dies with more dignity than someone who takes the easy way out does.
In the same way, director of the Hastings Center, a medical ethics think tank in Briarcliff Manor,
New York, said that “That would violate the tradition of medicine and raise doubts about the
roles of the physician.”

10. Another problem is that rapid and dramatic developments in medicine and technology struggles
to pull more and more people away from the edge of death.
Finally, it is argued that sanctioning assisted suicide would violate the rights of others. Doctors
and nurses might find themselves "pressured" to cooperate in a patient's suicide. In order to
satisfy the desires of a patient wanting to die, it's unjust to demand that others go against their
own deeply held convictions.
All in all, the case for assisted suicide is a powerful one – appealing to our capacity for
compassion and an obligation to support individual choice and self determination. But, the case
against assisted suicide is also powerful for it speaks to us of a fundamental reverence for life and
the risk of hurling down a slippery slope toward a diminished respect for life. With legislation in
the offing, we are compelled to choose which values are most important and to cast our vote.
Assisted suicide laws around the world are clear in some nations but unclear – if they
exist at all – in others. Just because a country has not defined its criminal code on this specific
action does not mean all assisters will go free. It is a complicated state of affairs. A great many
people instinctively feel that suicide and assisted suicide are such individual acts of freedom and
free will that they assume there are no legal prohibitions. This fallacy has brought many people
into trouble with the law.
Currently there are only four places which openly and legally authorise assisted suicide;
Oregon since 1997, Switzerland since 1941, Belgium since 2002 and the Netherlands since 2002.
Equally, there are countries such as Russia, Hungary, Republic of Ireland and England and Wales
that look upon assisted suicide as a criminal offence with harsh penalties.
As an example, the American Medial Association, opposes the procedure, “We believe the U.S.
Supreme Court will recognize and honor our ethical code and refuse to declare a constitutional
right to physician-assisted suicide," said Dr. Thomas Reardon, vice chair of the AMA. The
organization's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs has consistently condemned the practice”.
Between these two extremes there are also countries such as Germany, Denmark, Finland,
and Luxembourg where there is no specific law against assisted suicide but equally there is no
legislation proclaiming it to be legal.

11. Doctors themselves are divided upon whether it should be legalised. In September 1996
issue of the BMA News Review, the results of a survey of over 750 GPs and hospital doctors
showed that 46% of doctors supported a change in the law to allow them to carry out the request
of a terminally ill patient for voluntary euthanasia, 44% were against euthanasia and supported
the present law and 37% said they would be willing to actively help end the life of a terminally ill
patient who had asked for euthanasia and so assisting suicide, if the law allowed it.
It can be said that one of the most out - standing reasons for this difference is strong
religious beliefs, "Those who considered religion very important in their lives were much less
likely both to support legalization and to consider personal involvement in assisted suicide,"
researchers said. For those who believe in a higher power, they feel that only that power can take
them out of life, while those without religious beliefs say it is their right to decide. “ Pro – lifers
generally believe that human beings have no right to determine when a life is over; they feel that
only God can decide that”( Worsnop “Assisted suicide Controversy 412).
In today’s society, one of the most controversial issues is physician-assisted suicide for
the terminally ill. Many people feel that it is wrong, regardless of their health condition, to ask
their health care provider to end their life; while others feel it is their right to be able to choose
how and when they die. When a physician is asked to help a patient into death, they have many
responsibilities that come along with that single question. Among those responsibilities are:
providing valid information as to the terminal illness the patient is suffering, educating the patient
as to what their final options may be, making the decision of whether or not to help the patient
into death, and also if they do decide to help, providing the lethal dose of medication that will end
the patient’s life.