Euthanasia Essay - Should Physician-Assisted Suicide be Legal? :: Euthanasia Physician Assisted Suicide

Should Physician-Assisted Suicide be Legal?           Throughout the twentieth century, major scientific and medical advances have greatly enhanced the life expectancy of the norm person. However, there are many instances where fixs can preserve life artificially. In these cases where the enduring suffers from a terminal disease or remains in a persistent vegetative state or PVS from which they cannot voice their wishes for lengthening or termination of life, the question becomes whether or not the patient has the exemption to choose whether or not to prolong their life even though it may consist of put out and suffering. In answer to this question, proponents of physician-assisted suicide, most notably, Dr. jack up Kevorkian, are of the opinion that not only should patients be able to forbear from treatment, but if they have a terminal and/or extremely sore condition, they should be able to seek out the assistance of a doctor in order to expedite their death with as little pain as possible. Contained herein are the arguments for and against the le galization of doctor-assisted suicide, as well as where the state courts stand in respect to this most delicate of issues. In the hopes of clarification, we must first distinguish between active and passive euthanasia. static euthanasia involves the patients refusal of medical assistance. It involves the decline to die which is protected by the linked States Constitution clauses of due process liberty and the right to privacy (Fourteenth Amendment). The right to doctor-assisted suicide, or active euthanasia, consists of, ...a patients right to authorize a physician to serve an act that intentionally results in the patients death, without the physicians being held civilly or reprehensively liable for having caused the death . The passive form of euthanasia was first deemed jural by the New Jersey State unequivocal Court in 1976 In re Quinlan . In the Quinlan case , the court allowed a equal patient to terminate the use of life- sustaining medical machines to prolong life. Since New Jerseys decision, all fifty states have enacted similar statutes which contain living will provisions. However, although the United States authoritative Court upheld the Quinlan decision in re Cruzan , it changed the parameters of passive euthanasia . With the Cruzan decision, the Supreme Court held that passive euthanasia was legal but only for competent adults or those who are