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Critical Thinking Paper: The Negative Impacts of Physician-Assisted Suicide

Olivia Schulz

March 25, 2019

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On March 5, 2009, the state of Washington passed the Death with Dignity Act, an act

which allowed terminally ill patients to apply for and obtain medication that would end their

lives. The Death with Dignity Act enables physician assisted suicide, a process in which

physicians give the patients wishing to end their life the means to do so. Since its passage, the

rates of physician assisted suicide have steadily risen in Washington -- last year 159 people died

of physician assisted suicide. Since Oregon became the first state to pass the act, six states and

Washington, D.C. have either passed the Death with Dignity Act or an end of life option act like

it. The goal of the Death with Dignity Act is to let people who are terminally ill or disabled die

peacefully and painlessly on their own terms. While this may initially seem like a good thing, it

brings up numerous problems with it. The act comes with many ethical problems mainly

pertaining to the role of the physician and the legal aspect of physician assisted suicide, and it

also promotes unhealthy and unjust views on how to handle terminally ill or chronically disabled

patients. State governments must keep the Death with Dignity act from being further

implemented and prohibit physician assisted suicide because it violates the code of ethics for

physicians, violates the Equal Protections Clause, and endangers and devalues human lives.

Physician assisted suicide goes against the ethical code for physicians as well as violating

the Hippocratic Oath. According to the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Code of Ethics

concerning physician assisted suicide, physician assisted suicide is “fundamentally incompatible

with the physician’s role as healer.” Physician assisted suicide is classified as abandonment of

the patient even if there is no known cure. The job of the physician is to help the patient through

their illness and provide appropriate comfort care and adequate pain control” as well as “good

communication and emotional support” (Physician-Assisted Suicide).

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In addition, physicians are also violating the Hippocratic Oath by participating in

physician assisted suicide. The Hippocratic Oath is a pledge every doctor or medical professional

must take in order to become a medical worker. It contains strict guidelines basically states that

the medical professional should do no harm to a living being. It also states, “I will not give a

lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan” (The Hippocratic Oath). The

act of giving a person medication for the purpose of ending their life violates the Hippocratic

Oath and defies the actual purpose of the physician, which is heal and to extend the lives of

patients.

Physician assisted suicide violates the Equal Protections Clause because it encourages the

idea that some lives are worth more than others. The Equal Protections Clause states that

everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, by giving people

the opportunity to end their own lives legally and with the support of physicians, people are

being stripped of that right. Their lives are not treated with the same respect as those who do not

qualify for physician assisted suicide. As Tom Coburn, a US senator, said in the Consideration of

the Pain Relief Promotion Act of 1999, “The Declaration of Independence says that we should

have the right to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nothing in it says we have the

right to pursue death, nothing” (ProCon). Physician assisted suicide takes away a person’s right

to life, and therefore their rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

There is also a possibility that physician assisted suicide could potentially become very

dangerous societally. Because of the ability for doctors to end the lives of a patient, doctors have

an amount of power that could prove to be disastrous. There is now “a real possibility of the

extension of euthanasia to infants, those with mental incapacities or disabilities, and the elderly”

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(The case against). The legalization of physician assisted suicide allows for euthanasia and

similar measures to be seen as helpful “solutions” for individuals in circumstances other than the

requirements for physician assisted suicide today. Physician assisted suicide could potentially

pave the way for people who are not terminally ill but are not completely healthy or normally

functioning. In fact, the promotion of physician assisted suicide and euthanasia was “prominent

in the 1920s as part of the eugenics movement’s effort to eliminate the ‘unfit’” (Q&A). The

power of doctors to end human lives legally could be very dangerous and lead to corruption and

possibly to a similar situation of that of the eugenics movement.

Physician assisted suicide also addresses ill and disabled people in a way that is unfair

and wrong, as it it treats them like burdens of society by giving them the option to die. The fact

that people have a choice of whether or not to live out the full extent of their lives creates

pressure and often can make people feel like burdens on their families and on their communities.

Richard Doerflinger, a fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture

who serves on the Advisory Board to the Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity, says,

“Moreover, societies that authorize suicide as a ‘choice’ for some people soon end up

placing pressure on them to ‘do the right thing’ and kill themselves… Seeing suicide as a

solution for some illnesses can only undermine the willingness of doctors and society to

learn how to show real compassion and address patients’ pain and other problems. In

states that have legalized assisted suicide, in fact, most patients request the lethal drugs

not due to pain (or even fear of future pain), but due to concerns like ‘loss of dignity’ and

‘becoming a burden on others’ – attitudes that these laws encourage. The solution is to

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care for people in ways that assure them that they have dignity and it is a privilege, not a

burden, to care for them as long as they live.” (Q&A)

Laws like the Death with Dignity Act encourage the idea that one’s life is not worth as

much because they are allowed to end it prematurely. Physician assisted suicide, “while nobly

motivated, is wrong in principle - attempting to deal with the problems of human beings by

killing them” (OPINION). Physician assisted suicide should not be seen as a solution because

that treats human lives as problems, which is cruel and demeaning.

The Death with Dignity Act was created in good intentions. It is designed to help those

who are suffering or who are chronically ill or disabled to have a peaceful death without pain,

and to help them die on their own terms and take control of their own life, which is considered

more dignified than dying of a disease, hence the name Death with Dignity. However, viewing

Death with Dignity as a medical measure that is beneficial to humanity simply doesn’t make

sense. It comes with too many drawbacks logically, legally, ethically, and morally to be legalized.

For one thing, physician assisted suicide poses a danger to the medical code of ethics, and

allowing the Death with Dignity act to be passed would be allowing violation of set of medical

rules to be considered acceptable. Doctors should not be permitted to do anything requiring that

they break the code of ethics or the Hippocratic Oath, both of which are violated by physician

assisted suicide. It also deprives people of their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness, which is a basic and fundamental American right. The Equal Protections Clause

contains extremely important rights, and keeping those rights from some people would be

breaking the law. In addition, it has a negative impact on the value placed on human life. It

devalues the lives of people who are eligible for physician assisted suicide. Physician assisted

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suicide dredges up many problems and therefore it must be prevented from being implemented in

any more states and must be repealed in the states in which it exists.

Works Cited

Doerflinger, Richard. "Q&A with the Scholars: Physician-Assisted Suicide and

Euthanasia." Charlotte Lozier Institute, 30 July 2017, lozierinstitute.org/

qa-with-the-scholars-physician-assisted-suicide-and-euthanasia/.

Kavanagh, Peter. "OPINION: Why we should not legalise euthanasia."

NewsWeekly, 13 Nov. 2010, newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=4596.

"The Hippocratic Oath." Greek Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 16 Sept.

2002, www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html.

Hon, Tan Seow. "The case against physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active

euthanasia: A jurisprudential consideration." Research Collection School Of

Law, Aug. 2017, ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/

viewcontent.cgi?article=4224&context=sol_research.

"Physician-Assisted Suicide." American Medical Association, www.ama-assn.org/

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delivering-care/ethics/physician-assisted-suicide.

ProCon.org. "Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments." ProCon.org. 9 Oct. 2018,

euthanasia.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000126

Warnes, Sophie. "How many people choose assisted suicide where it is legal?"

The Guardian, 18 July 2014, www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/jul/

18/how-many-people-choose-assisted-suicide-where-it-is-legal.

Critical Thinking Annotated Bibliography

Doerflinger, Richard. "Q&A with the Scholars: Physician-Assisted Suicide and

Euthanasia." Charlotte Lozier Institute, 30 July 2017, lozierinstitute.org/

qa-with-the-scholars-physician-assisted-suicide-and-euthanasia/.

This source was extremely helpful in my research because it exposed me to an argument that I

had never really thought about before and that was very useful in my writing. I referenced this

source more than once because it had a plethora of information and it was very well worded and

presented its case in a strong way.

Kavanagh, Peter. "OPINION: Why we should not legalise euthanasia."

NewsWeekly, 13 Nov. 2010, newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=4596.

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"The Hippocratic Oath." Greek Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 16 Sept.

2002, www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html.

This source provided me with basic information that I needed to make one of my arguments and

provided me with quotes to support it.

Hon, Tan Seow. "The case against physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active

euthanasia: A jurisprudential consideration." Research Collection School Of

Law, Aug. 2017, ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/

viewcontent.cgi?article=4224&context=sol_research.

This paper was one of the most critical sources in my research. It helped me define and support

one of my stronger arguments and provided me with a lot of helpful information.

"Physician-Assisted Suicide." American Medical Association, www.ama-assn.org/

delivering-care/ethics/physician-assisted-suicide.

This was one of the sources that provided me with statistics and basic information on my topic

and on my strongest argument. It was the source of a lot of important background information

that set the basis for my argument.

ProCon.org. "Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments." ProCon.org. 9 Oct. 2018,

euthanasia.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000126

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This was one of the first sites I went to for my research, as it supplied me with arguments for and

against my own argument. It also supplied me with quotes and sources to uphold the arguments it

gave me.

Warnes, Sophie. "How many people choose assisted suicide where it is legal?"

The Guardian, 18 July 2014, www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/jul/

18/how-many-people-choose-assisted-suicide-where-it-is-legal.

This article was my main source of statistic and figures. It supplied me with graphs depicting the

circumstances of physician assisted suicide patients in each state in which it is legal, which was

extremely helpful.

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