AUTONOMY/HUMAN RIGHTS
By birth, all people are guaranteed several basic human rights. Some of these rights include the right of freedom, the right to a fair trial, right to freedom of speech, right to the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and the right to life. Strikingly absent from the list is the right to choose death. Americans have the right to nearly every aspect of our lives, except for the right for the most permanent and challenging choice to make. Autonomy in medical ethics is defined as a patient being able to elect and have a voice in their medical treatment. Due to restricted death with dignity laws across the country, patients are not able to exercise their autonomous choice. Many terminally patients are not able to choose when their time to die is or where. They should be able to make conclusions about the future quality of their life and decide what is best for themselves personally, in some cases, death. Many doctors and healthcare professionals often have difficulty accepting that a patient does not want to live anymore and will try to persuade them away from “giving up”. Shouldn't the person who is dying be able to make their own decision over their own life? On the death with dignity website, it provides many stories of real people who are supporters of the idea. One of those stories is from a 56 year old retired nurse named Reese, whose mother was slowly dying in anguish from metastatic liver cancer. Reese watched the indescribable pain her mother went through as the disease took its course. Reese wrote at the end of her story in connection with the thought that she might someday go through the same terrible situation that her mother went through, “When my battle to live can no longer be won, let me decide. Let me shoulder the consequences and take control before the disease takes me” (Reese: Let Me Decide)
ENDING SUFFERING
With terminal illness comes severe physical and emotional suffering. As the illness progresses, often the effects of the condition worsen and become more unbearable and the patient’s quality of life eventually is reduced severely. It does not give much for the patient to live for. They gradually lose the ability to do anything that they had loved to do, for example, dance, run, sing, swim, etc. In many cases of those who are yearning for physician-assisted suicide, they experience unbearable pain, severe difficulty in breathing, loss of motor functions, and loss of memory. When someone has a terminal illness, they are not the only ones suffering. The family and close friends of the person also suffer emotionally. They are forced to watch their loved one forgo increased excruciating pain while they slowly die. They observe the low quality of life that is thrown at their loved one. In a great number of physician-assisted suicide cases, the family members and close friends are supportive of the patient’s decision to request for the deadly medication. In an interview with the wife of a man with terminal brain cancer who supported death with dignity, she said “We’ve made such advances in medicine that we need this now. By living longer, you suffer longer, too. My husband is the perfect example. Twenty years ago, he would have died within weeks. But medicine kept him alive a long time, and so death becomes much longer and more horrible.” (Death with Dignity: Combatting Religious Opposition to Physician-Assisted Suicide)