Question

In Essay format (2-3 pages) Discuss social and legal issues of Assisted Suicide in health care.

Answer 1

It is increasingly evident that the value of human life is at stake in our society. Recent revelations concerning the use of deception to defend partial-birth abortion have shocked the nation. Deception and misinformation also arise on the issue of health care-assisted suicide. Euthanasia groups have portrayed a natural death as necessarily painful, undignified, costly and humiliating, as a not-too-subtle inducement to accept suicide and assisted suicide. Such stereotypes have even been endorsed in chilling decisions by the Second and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals, which are under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The rich and hallowed virtue of compassion is drained of meaning when it is invoked as a basis for destroying human life.

Seriously ill patients do not want assisted suicide. They want decent health care, control of their pain, and the same kind of love and support that everyone needs when vulnerable and dependent on others.

the most prominent and vigourous suicide right activist seek legalisation of terminally illpatient, but also for an array for other social devalued and disadvantaged person,most notably older people and physically disabled person.

The emphasis by medicine and society on intervention and cure has sometimes come at the expense of good end-of-life care. Inappropriate treatment at the end of life may be harmful and draining—physically, emotionally, and financially—for patients and their families. Many people have concerns about death. At the end of life, some patients receive unwanted care; others do not receive needed care . Some end-of-life concerns are outside of medicine's scope and should be addressed in other ways. Although medicine now has an unprecedented capacity to treat illness and ease the dying process, the right care in the right place at the right time has not been achieved.

Medicine and society still struggle with getting it right for all patients. Although progress has been made, the principles and practices of hospice and palliative medicine have not been fully realized

the IOM's Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life reported that challenges remain in delivering quality end-of-life care to a growing and diverse elderly population, especially with regard to access to care, communication barriers, time pressures, and care coordination . Inadequate reimbursement and other disincentives also are barriers to palliative and hospice care.

Medical ethics establishes the duties of physicians to patients and society, sometimes to a greater extent than the law . nonmaleficence , respect for patient autonomy, and promotion of fairness and social justice . Medical ethics and the law strongly support a patient's right to refuse treatment, including life-sustaining treatment. The intent is to avoid or withdraw treatment that the patient judges to be inconsistent with his or her goals and preferences. Death follows naturally, after the refusal, as a result of the underlying disease .

Ethical arguments in support of physician-assisted suicide highlight the principle of respect for patient autonomy and a broad interpretation of a physician's duty to relieve suffering . Proponents view physician-assisted suicide as an act of compassion that respects patient choice and fulfills an obligation of nonabandonment . Opponents maintain that the profession's most consistent ethical traditions emphasize care and comfort, that physicians should not participate in intentionally ending a person's life, and that physician-assisted suicide requires physicians to breach specific prohibitions as well as the general duties of beneficence and nonmaleficence. Such breaches are viewed as inconsistent with the physician's role as healer and comforter