Assisted Suicide
Assisted Suicide research paper due and don't know how to start it? How about like this?
Like the debate over abortion, the question of assisted suicide is deeply entangled in questions of religion. To the religious, life is sacred. It follows, therefore, at least in the eyes of many religious sects, that only God can decide when to take a life. Most religions hold suicide to be a sin, and assisting someone in a suicide to be equally sinful.
Additionally, many doctors (those most qualified to help someone end their life as painlessly as possible) refuse to take part in assisted suicides, again, because of their Hippocratic Oath.
Other common arguments against assisted suicide that you may want to include in your research paper are:
- Slippery Slope Argument
- Effective life treatments are available to alleviate pain
- Medical ethical arguments
- Right to Die
Assisted Suicide and Diseases
Modern medicine has brought much that is good, and some that is bad. With today's medical technologies, people with terminal diseases often are able to live months, or even years, longer than they would have only decades earlier. Unfortunately, in the late stages of many diseases, pain can be intense if not unbearable. Some patients lose the ability to do things for themselves, to communicate, or even to think. For many, life at this stage no longer is worth living. Assisted suicide, via a lethal dosage of a drug, or combination of drugs, can bring the end swiftly and painlessly.
And although many doctors cite their Hippocratic Oath as the reason for their opposition for assisted suicide, Jack Kevorkian, MD, argues that Hippocrates, himself, would not have named death as the primary enemy of the physician, but rather disease. Disease, Kervorkian points out, is the usurper of one's ease, and medicine is the tool used to fight it. By mistakenly fighting the wrong enemy, Kervorkian writes that doctors do their patients a disservice by fighting death to the point of prolonging disease.
Assisted Suicide and Kevorkian
Finally, Kervorkian notes, that by refusing to assist in the suicide of a terminally ill patient wishing to end his or her life, the physician is placing his personal beliefs over the needs of and desires of his patient.