1. Physician Assisted Suicide
James Bowen, Liz Coffey, Arthur Jones, Lynese Sarazen, Andre Taylor
November 17, 2014
PHL/458
Dr. Sonya Walker
2. Introduction
Assisted Suicide
What Is It?
How Is It Different Than Euthanasia?
Where Is It Legal?
Who’s Life Is It Anywhere?
Is It Your Life
Once You Are Born Do You Belong To Society
Property of Government
Religion
3. Issue
Do You Have The Right To Request Assistance In
Taking Your Life?
Should Nevada Follow Vermont, Oregon, Montana
and Washington and Become The Next State To
Legalize Assisted Suicide?
Would This Lead To Euthanasia?
Is This a Moral Issue or Big Business Issue
A Story About Matthew Donnelly
4. Critical Examination Of Resolution
The New Jersey courts
rulings (Karen Ann
Quinlan)
The right to choose life
or death
The real cost of
sustaining life
5. Initial Resolution
The patient should all
ways have right to
choose.
The right to end self
suffering.
The right to help those
who are suffering.
(physician)
6. Initial Resolution
According to the website Death with
Dignity (2014) advocates say “The
greatest human freedom is to live &
die according to one’s desires &
beliefs”.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian was a advocate
who had spurred national debate
regarding ethics of euthanasia and
hospice care.
The legal system should allow the
patient the decision to end life not
have the court system to make the
determination for them.
Visionary or Villain?
7. Possible Solutions
Allow patients to petition
for PAS
Dr.’s prescribe “lethal
doses” of medicine
Family members petition
panel for PAS
Patient / family has control
of the illness resolution
No Physician Assisted
Suicide (PAS) allowed
Patients suffer from painful
terminal illness
High medical bills
Patient commits suicide
without PAS
8. Pros & Cons
Pros
The right to die should be a
fundamental freedom of each
person
Patients can die with their
dignity intact instead of their
illness reducing them to a shell
of a person
Health care costs can be
reduced
Tremendous pain and suffering
of patients will be addressed
Pain and suffering of patient’s
family & friends can be
lessened and they can say
their final goodbyes
Cons
A request for assisted suicide
is typically a cry for help
Suicidal intent is typically
transient
Terminally ill pt who desire
death are depressed and
depression is treatable in
those with terminal illness
Pain is controllable
Legalizing for those with
terminal illness has spread to
non voluntary euthanasia
9. Physician-Assisted Suicide Statistics
In the U.S.
Between 1994 and 2006, there were 75 legislative bills to
legalize PAS in 21 states and all of them failed.
Currently, PAS is legal in three states: Oregon, Washington, and
Montana.
The reasons patients gave when requesting PAS in Oregon:
86% reported a decreasing ability to participate in activities
that made life enjoyable
100% reported loss of autonomy, and
86% reported loss of dignity
Of those patients in Oregon that request PAS, roughly 62% of
them actually complete it.
90% of those patients died at home.
88% of them were on hospice.
10. Implementation Plan
Review Current State
Laws
Address Coercion Issue
3rd Party Witness
Video for Evidence
Petition for PAS
Present Petition for
Ballot
Present Updated Bill for
Review
11. Allowing PAS for
Terminally Ill Patients
Human Right
End the Suffering
Return Control to the
Patient
Financial Cost
Emotional Cost
13. References
Compassion and Choices. (2014). Legal aid in dying. Retrieved from
https://www.compassionandchoices.org/news/legal-aid-in-dying/
Death with Dignity. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.deathwithdignity.org/resources
Jack Kevorkian. (2014). The Biography.com website. Retrieved from
http://www.biography.com/people/jack-kevorkian-9364141
Karen Ann Quinlan. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.karenannquinlanhospice.org/history/
Patients Rights Council. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/
PEW Research Center. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/
Pozzuolo, JD, J. (September 2005). Should euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide be legal. Retrieved from
http://euthanasia.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000126
Webb, M.D., R. J. (2010, May 12). What is the difference between Patient assisted suicide and Euthanasia?
Retrieved from http://comfortcarechoices.com
Notes de l'éditeur
Assisted Suicide: where patient has to take the final action themselves
Euthanasia: Someone else takes the final action
Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland; Oregon, Montana, Washington and Vermont has assisted dying laws restricted to terminally ill and mentally competent adults
Moral Issue or Big Business: Medical World making billions keeping people alive
A Story:
Matthew Donnelly loved life.
But Matthew Donnelly wanted to die
Matthew had conducted research on the use of X-rays
Matthew had skin cancer riddled his tortured body. He had lost his nose, his left hand, two fingers on his right hand, and part of his jaw. He was left blind and was slowly deteriorating. The pain was unrelenting. Doctors estimated that he had a year to live. Lying in bed with teeth clenched from the excruciating pain, he pleaded to be put out of his misery. Matthew wanted to die now. His pleas went unanswered. Then, one day, Matthew's brother Harold, unable to ignore Matthew's repeated cry, removed a .30 caliber pistol from his dresser drawer, walked to the hospital, and shot and killed his brother. Harold was tried for murder. - See more at: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v1n1/suicide.html#sthash.ArpLJRyH.dpuf
The ruling of Karen Ann Quinlan, 22 year old female in New Jersey, brain dead, unplugged and lived for a decade before she died. After her death her brain and spinal chord was examined. She would have never been the same because of the damage caused by the drugs and alcohol.
Assisted suicide involves more then just one person that’s terminally ill it affects ethics, religion, medicine, psychology, sociology, economics, the law, public policy, and other fields.
Billions of dollars a year are being made by hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. This is all due to people becoming terminally ill. Cancer, brain tumors, and aids are just a few to name.
Its very expensive to prolong life with machines breathing for the person and IV injecting medicines.
The right to choose should be that of the person and not the government. When a person is kept alive against there will this should fall under cruel and unusual punishment because the government is prolonging suffering of that citizen.
The terminally ill person should all ways have the right to end self suffering. This should be come a civil right to all humanity.
Doctors and physician should not be held liable for the death in the assisted suicide for the terminally ill that has no chance of recovery.
Nevada has no statue for assisted suicide.
-Dr. Kevorkian believed that a person should be allowed the right to end life so that they would not have to deal with the severity of pain & suffering from a terminal illness that curtails life even for a day.
-Since Oregon approved the Death with Dignity law, there has been approximately 129 terminally ill patients that had died peacefully.
There are two possible solutions. The first is that Nevada pass a law allowing terminally ill patients to take control of their death and allowing for PAS.
The second is that the law does not pass and painful, lingering lives are what they have to look forward to when diagnosed with a painful, terminal illness.
Each individual will have his or her own belief on this subject and without imposing my belief onto the viewer, I gave some of the most common pros and cons on this subject.
Medical advances today have come a long way and have created ethical dilemmas which was not present in the past generation of doctors. New treatment of life sustaining methods has been created and forcing physicians have to ask the question “How far do we go to save a life?”
Other questions challenge ethical traditions, which have been in place for hundreds “ When suffering is immeasurable and a patients condition is terminal should doctors be permitted to end a patients life?” should doctors take an active role in hastening a patients death?”
Today, more than ever, the push is on to "change the rules." Dr. Kevorkian, while deplored by most medical professionals for his methods, is heralded as a hero on many fronts for bringing this issue into the public square. By all accounts a time of decision is upon us. When a fully conscious person requests death, should a physician -- contrary to the Hippocratic oath -- assist the person in dying?
It is the purpose of this power point presentation to present a concise overview of the primary arguments for and against the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. Without a careful consideration of the concerns on both sides, we can find ourselves saddled with ill-conceived policies that do not serve our best interests and will not be easily dislodged.
The current state laws have some areas that still need improvement. One of the arguments against PAS is the possibility of coercion from the family or insurance company of the patient. To ensure no coercion or undo stress is applied to make a decision for either PAS or euthanasia, we would suggest either a video log or an impartial third party be present when the final decision is made.
Once the additional issues have been addressed, we would like to petition Clark County to add the proposition to the ballot on the next election. Should the petition for ballot pass and the bill pass the initial stage of election, we would present the bill for review to the state and request a state wide ballot proposition to legalize physician assisted suicide.
Allowing physician assisted suicide is allowing patients to take control of a situation that may not have been there before. It is a fundamental right for humans to have control of their lives. They should not have to suffer through the agony of illness and pain. We are not advocating for a free-for-all on suicide, just that terminally ill patients, in great pain, with no hope of recovery have the right to end their own lives with dignity and control.
For many patients, the financial cost of continuing treatment can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Money they do not have and the insurance companies will not cover. This is not offered as a solution for insurance companies to limit coverage but as an option for patients with the prognosis of painful, drawn-out treatments that will cause financial and emotional strain on the individual and his or her family.
Finally, the emotional cost of watching a loved one suffer while begging to die is tremendous. Allowing family members some emotional support during an illness and at the time when treatment is no longer viable is an added benefit of allowing for PAS.
