...PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE: LEGALITY AND MORALITY Wednesday - May 8th, 2002 By Martin Levin, 107 Irving Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (617)-497-6828 mlevin@levinlaw.com On Sunday, June 21, 1992, Jennifer Cowart, age thirty-two, and her brother George Kowalski, age twenty-eight, traveled to Pensacola Beach, Florida, for a day of relaxation. At the end of the day, Jennifer and George were heading back to their vehicle when Jennifer noticed a go-kart track. The two entered the track, bought tickets, and began riding. Within one minute, Jennifer’s go-kart bumped into one of the side guardrails, flipped on its side, and burst into flames. Jennifer was seat-belted in the go-kart and could not get out. George tried to run into the fire to save his sister, but the flames were too intense. Bystanders attempted to use a fire extinguisher, but it did little to lessen the inferno. Jennifer was trapped in the burning go-kart for two minutes when her seat-belt finally burned through and she fell to the ground. George grabbed his sister and pulled her away from the fire. Jennifer was alive. She was lying on the asphalt alert, oriented, and coherent. She had suffered 3rd and 4th degree burns covering ninety-five percent of her body. She was suffering the worst pain imaginable. At the scene, Jennifer begged the rescue personnel to “let me die.” Instead, Jennifer was flown to a burn center in Mobile, Alabama, where she remained for one year until she was overcome by an infection...
Words: 15474 - Pages: 62
...Physician Assisted Suicide: An Analysis: People v Kevorkian Angelia Prince Shorter University The Legal and Ethical Dilemma of Physician Assisted Suicide: An Analysis: People v Kevorkian This research was aimed at providing an analysis of the ethical and legal dilemma surrounding physician assisted suicides. The subject of physician-assisted suicide has raised many thought provoking and controversial questions. This paper will evaluate, the ethical dilemma surrounding physician assisted suicides, the case of People v. Kevorkian, the differing laws pertaining to physician assisted suicide in Michigan, Georgia, and Oregon. The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with information on the state’s most current laws regarding assisted suicide and how the case of People v. Kevorkian was a unique case involving physician-assisted suicide. The Ethical Debate of PAS In his article, Hosseini (2012), argued that physician-assisted suicide (PAS), is a moral and ethical dilemma faced by physicians, ethicists, legal experts, and others. Hosseini went on to explain that PAS is opposed by the American Medical Association (AMA) and all the US states except for Oregon. In his research, Hosseini (2012) used the case, People v. Kevorkian, as a basis to argue that although there is an ethical dilemma surrounding PAS, it was not the act alone that resulted in Dr. Kevorkian’s arrest and sentence. Hosseini posed the question in his research “Is Physician-Assisted Suicide Ethical...
Words: 3476 - Pages: 14
...COMS 321 – Rhetorical Discourse 18 Jun 2015 DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS: LET’S CALL PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE WHAT IT IS I have conducted a descriptive analysis from an article written by Karin Klein, Editorial Writer of the Los Angeles Times, published on February 17, 2015. Klein tackled the topic “Let’s call physician-assisted suicide what it is”. The newly written Senate Bill (SB) 128 would “allow physicians in California to write lethal prescriptions under tightly controlled circumstances” for the terminally ill but will not call it as “suicide” nor will it be reflected as such on death certificates. Klein’s editorial is focused on the these two major flaws of the bill written for the terminally ill who are looking for a dignified way to end their life by allowing them access to lethal prescription drugs if the bill is passed. The bill is mirrored after the State of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act law passed by its legislature in 1997. Klein’s purpose, at the time of her writing the editorial, was to reach out to the legislators and advocates of the bill, her audience, to modify the bill by naming it as it is, “a physician-assisted suicide” and reflecting it as such in death certificates. The tone and approach to her writing was straight to the point while at times satirical, stretching how the definition of “suicide” can have a different connotation in the eyes and perspectives of the advocates of the bill. Klein seeks to appeal to the writers and proponents of the...
Words: 1550 - Pages: 7
...EITHICAL DELIMAS IN NURSING Green Group Shannon Blake, Sherri Dunn, Susan Brown, Tammie Hicks, Miriam Cook Grand Canyon University Nrs-437 November 7, 2015 Nurses have been playing very important roles in the caring of patients throughout the continuum of life and at the end of life for years. It is the position of the ANA that participation of nurses in euthanasia is prohibited as those acts are in contradiction of the code of ethics for nurses. Nurses have a duty to provide humane, comprehensive and compassionate care in respect to the rights of patients, but maintain the standard of the profession in the presence of chronic, debilitating illness and at the end of life. Voluntary euthanasia is the act of taking a life painlessly especially to relief suffering from an incurable illness, with the consent of a dying patient. Denying people such wishes can lead to unnecessary suffering. There are two types of euthanasia; involuntary, where patients refuse to consent and non-voluntary, patients unable to consent. Euthanasia can have great impact on the society. It affects everyone one way or another. Although a person has autonomy to make decisions about his end of life care doesn’t take away from the fact that their family and friends will be affected with guilt, anger and bitterness. Voluntary euthanasia can hamper efforts to advance medical research in finding cures for diseases (Saunders, 2011). As the nurse taking care of a terminally ill patient...
Words: 2650 - Pages: 11
...Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide Stacy L. Free Top of Form PHI103: Informal Logic (ACL1248D) Instructor: Stephen CarterBottom of Form January 14, 2013 Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide “To be or not to be ” the infamous question brought about by Shakespeare in his famous play called Hamlet (No Sweat Shakespeare, 2004-2013) begged Hamlet to question whether to exist or not exist. As in the play, there are people who have struggled to answer this question throughout human history. In modern times a debate has sprung regarding the sickly who are terminally ill. Although some believe that physician-assisted suicide should not be legalized because it is a moral issue that they maintain is unnecessary and what it boils down to a lack of physician training that puts undue pressure on patients to opt for suicide, the procedure should be legalized because, when death is imminent, people should not be limited by laws that affect their basic human rights, forcing them to live in agonizing pain due to inadequate medical services, and allow them to die with dignity. If physician-assisted suicide were legalized then terminally ill people would be relieved from having to endure unnecessary pain and suffering when, even with medical intervention, the patient is forced to endure an agonizing demise. Assisting in more than 130 terminally ill patient suicides between 1990 and 1998, Dr. Jack Kevorkian believed that terminally ill patients should be allowed to determine...
Words: 2155 - Pages: 9
...Assisted Suicide PHI 200: Mind and Machine Physician Assisted Suicide Physician assisted suicide is the common term whereby a physician, at the request of a terminally ill patient, assists the patient in voluntarily ending their own life. Assistance can mean providing one with the means (drugs or equipment) to end their own lives, but may extend to other actions. There are currently three states in the US which allow physician assisted suicide as well as a handful of countries. Global public debate has been ongoing for decades, centering on legal, religious, and moral conceptions of suicide and a personal right to death. “In some religious contexts, while a suicide is considered to be an offense made out of unknowing, confusion, or despair, assisted suicides are ostensibly actions made in faith, with no expectation of incurred sin or such that would bar transcendence to an afterlife”. In certain religious denominations, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, suicides are considered a serious sin. So, many Catholics oppose the practice of assisted suicide. For years, doctors have been prohibited from assisting patients to end their own lives. There are many arguments for and against assisting terminally ill patients to remain in control of their own destiny. Should a terminally ill patient be able to commit suicide? Proponents of patients’ rights argue that patients have the right to die...
Words: 2261 - Pages: 10
...An Economic and Law Based Analysis of ‘The Right to Die’ What constitutes as the ‘right to die’? According to US Legal Inc., the “right to die” refers to a variety of issues associated with the decision of whether or not an individual should be allowed to die when it is possible for them to continue living with the aid of life support, or in a debilitated state. More specifically, it refers to the idea that an individual diagnosed with a terminal illness, committing suicide before death occurs, should be permissible with their right to refuse an extension of life through artificial or heroic efforts acknowledged. In this term paper, analyzed, are the economic issues and concerns associated with the fight for the ‘right to die’ in Canada. Explored,...
Words: 2350 - Pages: 10
...Kader Lochina EN 102 Exploratory essay “Physician assisted suicide” Physician assisted suicide (PAS) is the voluntary termination of one's life by administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a physician. It is legal in a few countries like the Netherlands. In the United States it is legal in only the state of Oregon. It is a very controversial topic with 3 different opinions groups. The group of people who are for it, those who are opposed to it and there is a third neutral group which is composed of medical associations. The first group is composed of the pro PAS .They argue that there are some patients who experience terrible suffering that can't be relieved by any other of the therapeutic techniques nursing has to offer, and some of those patients desperately seek deliverance. For pro PAS, PAS is not about doctors killing patients , but it is about patients whose pain cannot be relieved. Physicians who consider it merciful to help a patient to die by writing a prescription are not criminals. Supporters of PAS feel It is cruel to leave patients who need such help to find for themselves solutions to end their own lives, solutions that can be traumatic when human assistance can be available. The physicians have obligations, but when a cure is impossible and palliation has failed to achieve its objectives, there is always a remaining obligation to relieve suffering....
Words: 935 - Pages: 4
...University of Warwick School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2010-05 LEGAL FORM AND MORAL JUDGMENT: THE PROBLEM OF EUTHANASIA Alan Norrie Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1577163 ABSTRACT In this paper, I want to consider the way in which categories of legal responsibility in the criminal law’s general part mediate and finesse broader moral issues around questions of euthanasia. I INTRODUCTION Euthanasia and its close cousin assisted dying represent extremely problematic areas for the criminal law, as the recent guidelines issue around assisted suicide testifies. The effect of these guidelines is to make no official change in the law, yet to make it clear as a matter of practice that where the law on its face has been broken, there will be no prosecution where the defendant was motivated by good moral reasons. On a legal realist vision of law, the law has changed, but on a positivistic reading it has not. What we have in fact is a rather complex and potentially troublesome juxtaposition of legal rule and administrative discretion. This balances strong social, political and moral claims in a society where there is no consensus as to the rights and wrongs of helping someone to die. In this context, the legal realist can say ‘I told you so’, and the legal positivist can cluck disapprovingly, but both miss the point, which is that the law’s messy mixing of messages in a pragmatic compromise reflects the moral impasse in a way that...
Words: 6370 - Pages: 26
...have been pressed to the walls by their ailments. This has compelled them seek for suicide assistance in form of prescriptions for lethal drugs to help them terminate their lives. Such patients have undergone extreme pain that they are left with no options rather to beg to die. This is an illusion to some critics who preach about the sanctity of life. This paper intends to explore on legalizing Physician Assisted Suicide for terminally ill patients with certain guidelines. Introduction According to Birnbacher (2008), the question of legalizing physician assisted suicide still generates great debate. These two scholars have added their voice to the debate by stressing that physician assisted suicide should be permissible medical caregivers. This should only be possible under certain and considerable conditions. Manning (1998) also argued that some diseases are quite traumatizing. The patients tend to face extreme suffering that even doctors can seldom extend their olive branch. For instance, when an individual is suffering from incurable syndromes that press them to the extreme throughout their life, then euthanasia should be allowed (Snyder, 2002). This showed that physician assisted suicide could relieve such patients from the suffering. Based on the debate on physical assisted suicide, the proponents of the debate have appealed for legalizing physical assisted suicide. Their arguments have basically been founded on principle of autonomy (Birnbacher, 2008). The supporters...
Words: 3170 - Pages: 13
...THE LAW ON ASSISTED SUICIDE On July 26, 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld decisions in New York and Washington state that criminalized assisted suicide. These decisions overturned rulings in the 2nd and 9th Circuit Courts of Appeal which struck down state statutes banning physician-assisted suicide. Those courts had found that the statutes, which prohibited doctors from prescribing lethal medication to competent, terminally ill adults, violated the 14th Amendment. In striking the appellate decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court found that there was no constitutional "right to die," but left it to individual states to enact legislation permitting or prohibiting physician-assisted suicide. (The full text of these decisions, plus reports and commentary, can be found at the Washinton Post web site.) As of April 1999, physician-assisted suicide is illegal in all but a handful of states. Over thirty states have enacted statutes prohibiting assisted suicide, and of those that do not have statutes, a number of them arguably prohibit it through common law. In Michigan, Jack Kevorkian was initially charged with violating the state statute, in addition to first-degree murder and delivering a controlled substance without a license. The assisted suicide charge was dropped, however, and he was eventually convicted of second degree murder and delivering a controlled substance without a license. Only one state, Oregon, has legalized assisted suicide. The Oregon statute...
Words: 13101 - Pages: 53
...that pertain to the psychiatric nursing care of the person who is suicidal: Part one John R. Cutcliffe1,2,3 and Paul S. Links4,5 1 ‘David G. Braithwaite’ Department of Nursing, University of Texas, Tyler, USA, 2Stenberg College, Vancouver, Canada, 3University of Ulster, Jordanstown, UK, 4Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto; and 5 Arthur Rotter Somnerburg Chair in Suicide Studies, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ABSTRACT: It is self-evident that ethical issues are important topics for consideration for those involved in the care of the person who is suicidal. Nevertheless, despite the obvious relationship between Mental Health nurses and care of the person who is suicidal, such nurses have hitherto been mostly silent on these matters. As a result, this two-part paper focuses on a number of contemporary issues which might help inform the ethical discourse and resultant Mental Health nursing care of the person who is suicidal. Part one of this paper focuses on the issues: Whose life is it anyway? Harming of our bodies and the inconsistency in ethical responses and, Is suicide ever a reasonable thing to do? The authors find that this contemporary view within the suicidology academe and the corresponding legal position in most western (developed) countries is that the individual owns his/her own body. Yet given that contemporary mental healthcare policy and associated practice positions do not reflect view, this can easily lead to the scenario where a...
Words: 7425 - Pages: 30
...Retrospective Healthcare Policy Analysis: Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act Professional Policy Analyst from the Normative Policy Analyses Approach Retrospective Healthcare Policy Analysis: Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act was the legislated response to a highly controversial health policy debate regarding patients’ rights – specifically whether or not a patient has the right to die if they choose to do so (Altmann & Collins, 2007). While euthanasia and physician assisted suicide are not new topics, they did receive an increase in public and media attention during the early 1990s. Most notably Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who defied the law and assisted in 130 patient suicides, Dr. Kevorkian’s actions brought about increased media coverage on the topic of physician assisted suicide, which is a contributing factor as to why the Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act was conceived in the first place (Werth JR & Wineberg, 2005). On the one side of the spectrum were advocates of physician assisted suicide who maintained that it was an infringement on patients’ rights to deny them aid in dying, and inhumane to make people suffer when diagnosed with a terminal illness (Merino, 2012). On the other side were critics who concluded that physician assisted suicide was a breach of medical ethics, and morally unacceptable because it devalued human life. Furthermore, these critics found that assisted suicide was not valid because there were alternative solutions, such...
Words: 1834 - Pages: 8
...paper, however, is to provide enough information regarding the Colorado End of Life Options Act to ensure that a general understanding of the basic requirements/qualifications, processes, individuals involved, and dilemmas surrounding physician assisted suicide is obtained. Keywords: Colorado, End of Life Options, Physician assisted suicide The Colorado End of Life Options Act The concept of physician...
Words: 1789 - Pages: 8
...SHOULD EUTHANASIA BE LEGALIZED IN INDIA? Table of Contents I. Abstract 2 II. Introduction 2 III. The Legal and Social Position in India 5 III.1 Religious Views on the issue of euthanasia 7 IV. Legal and Social Position in Canada 8 V. Comparative Analysis 13 VI. Stance of the medical practitioners as per the medical ethics 15 VII. Conclusion 15 Abstract It is often said that every person has a right to life and that too a right to live with dignity. There have been a number of scholars who have argued that the right to life which has been granted to a person would be useless if certain rights ancillary to the right are not being provided to the individual. A few of these rights include the right to food, right to clean and hygienic environment, right to personal liberty, right to make a choice and right to live a dignified life. But on analysing the right with a liberal view and expanding the scope of the ‘right to life’ a little the question that arises is whether the ‘right to life’ include a ‘right to die’? As per a layman’s understanding, the question that whether you want to live or die is a personal decision. The Constitution or any other Law should not dictate that whether we should exercise that right of ours or not. This is because of the prime reason that because the Government, who is making the Law, does not know the problems with an individual’s life therefore it cannot be competent enough to make a decision. However...
Words: 5598 - Pages: 23
