Why Physician-Assisted Suicide Should Be Legalized
Cover photo by Pietro Jeng
Hayden Hockerman
Imagine there are two mothers each with a son who were diagnosed with cancer that eventually became terminal. According to “Our Sons’ Agony Taught Us the Importance of Medical Aid in Dying”, this was the sad reality of the mothers of Miguel Carrasquillo and Andrew Flack. Andrew passed away after being fed lethal medication with a spoonful of strawberry sorbet. He was in his bedroom with his dog Jaxson, staring at the sunset while surrounded by his loved ones as they shared funny stories from his childhood. The other son, Miguel, went through excruciating pain before his death. His morphine patch did nothing to alleviate the pain of headaches, electrical shocks, and back pain.
Which death would you want? Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) should be legal in all 50 states of the United States due to the pain the terminally ill face, the ability to end mercy killings, and the respect for patients’ bodily autonomy.
According to the National Library of Medicine, Physician-Assisted Suicide “-refers to a physician providing a patient who requests aid-in-dying a prescription that the patient can self-administer to end his or her life” (2018). Typically, this practice is used on patients with terminal illnesses, which are extremely relevant in today’s society. Huffman and Harmer asserted “...there are currently twenty-million people worldwide who need some form of end-of-life care” (2023). Typically, end-of-life care talks about patients who have an estimated time period left to live, usually fewer than six months.
Additionally, in a study listed by Weiss, they interviewed 988 patients with terminal illnesses they found that 50 percent of them reported having moderate or severe pain. However, it may not go away for them after a few days. Without PAS they could be experiencing this pain for months at a time, or in some cases, like Miguel Carrasquillo, the medicine administered may not even relieve the pain. Based on this information terminally ill patients should have access to euthansia.
As stated before, Physician-Assisted Suicide can help end the suffering of others. Additionally, it would put an end to “mercy killings.” Without PAS being legal, there are some situations where someone will ask a loved one to help them commit suicide. These are what are known as “mercy killings.” The situation could look something like a person who is in stage four cancer and the medicine they are being given is doing nothing to ease their pain, so they ask their loved one to help assist their death. Theweek.com states, “According to Dignity in Dying, 44% of people would break the law and help a loved one die, risking 14 years in prison (2024). If Physician-Assisted Suicide was legalized then people would not have to risk going to prison, and instead professional medical staff could give patients a painless and more comfortable death.
Furthermore, PAS would provide patients their right to their bodily autonomy. Autonomy refers to one’s governing over their own decisions around their body. With most terminally ill patients they may feel that their world is out of control and that they have no power over anything. Physician-Assisted Suicide would give them the ability to choose how and where they die along with whom they are surrounded by. Not all patients will choose to die as soon as they get their prescription for PAS, some will live for months more. Patients may decide they still have time to live life to the fullest or have unfinished business. Just having the prescription with them can ease their anxieties about death because they realize that support is available for them and that they have an option (Wallis, 2021).
Physician-assisted suicide is not a recent issue. The first successful operation didn’t happen until 1846 where John Warren used ether anesthesia to assist a patient’s death. Then, it wasn’t until 151 years later where the first state, Oregon, legalized Physician-Assisted Suicide (Chin et al., 1999). However, the legalities of PAS are still an issue today, there are still 39 states that have yet to make it legal. People are diagnosed with terminal illnesses every year. According to the CDC, “in the United States in 2021, 1,777,566 new cancer cases were reported and in 2022, 608,366 people died of cancer” (2024). This is only one of many terminal illnesses in our society. Others include motor neurone disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease.
Many of these people with these life-ending illnesses feel powerless, so giving them their autonomy and the right to choose how they die is in some ways their last feeling of peace. Due to the amount of pain patients have, the ending of mercy killings, and the right for bodily autonomy Physician-Assisted Suicide for terminally ill patients should be legal in all of the United States.
References
Our Sons' Agony Taught Us the Importance of Medical Aid in Dying
Introduction - Physician-Assisted Death - NCBI Bookshelf
Understanding the experience of pain in terminally ill patients - The Lancet
Pros and cons of legalising assisted dying | The Week
Death doulas and end-of-life rights: The debate on assisted dying
