The Legalization of Assisted Suicide

Charles Davis

Persuasive Argument

March 16, 2005

The Legalization of Assisted Suicide

Oregon, the Netherlands, and Belgium are the only three jurisdictions in the world that permit assisted suicide and/or euthanasia. Oregon became the leader of the United States in assisted suicide, when the Oregon legislation passed the Death with Dignity Act in 1994, permitting "physicians to write prescriptions for a lethal dosage of medication to people with a terminal illness" (Department of Human Services). Oregon's act specifies who is permitted to assist a terminally ill patient in their time of choosing between life and death. But in the event that the United States as a country legalized assisted suicide, who would determine which patients qualified as terminally ill, and who would be permitted to "assist" these "terminally ill" patients? With questions still arising as to how and who on a topic such as assisted suicide, one can only prohibit the action until all aspects have been considered, eliminating confusion.

Assisted suicide is considered as someone providing another person with information, guidance, and/or means to take his/her own life. It is only considered to be physician assisted suicide (PAS) when a doctor is the provider. In many cases it is the physician who assists a current patient with their final wish of ending his/her life, but what about in other cases? In "Last Right," by Carrie Carmichael, Carmichael is asked by her best friend if she (Carmichael's friend) can jump out of Carmichael's window. While planning out the action, Carmichael began second-guessing, asking, "Could I sleep in my room after my friend plunged to her death from my window" (Carmichael, 98)? Not only was Carmichael considering her own emotions, and her own life, but she also considered how the action would affect others: "Nothing to break her fall. But nothing to protect pedestrians either" (Carmichael, 98). When a person who wishes to commit suicide pursues assisted suicide, not only is that person affecting themselves, but also those people around them. Carrie Carmichael's friend had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, prohibiting her from committing suicide via an over dosage of pills. Carmichael's friend wanted to commit the suicide before she had became too weak to perform the suicide on her own. In Carrie Carmichael's case, the "assistance" provided to her friend was limited because Carmichael drove her friend to the hotel where she would leap from the building, in opposition to those people who injected loved ones with medications or provided the medications for over dosage, only to be provoked to suffocate the family member in time of mishap. Although