Assisted Suicide for the Terminally Ill

Suicide isn't for everybody.


Suicide also is not illegal. However, in many places a person who is found to have attempted will be kept overnight and given treatment (usually medication) and intervention to prevent future attempts. In many places it is legal to prescribe lethal medicine, but it is illegal to administer it directly to the patient (the laws are foggy and on a case-by-case basis). The only place where assisted suicide is legal in the United States is Oregon.


Assisted suicide, as by definition, is someone helping somebody else to end their life. In the modern age this is done for the terminally ill or chronically in pain by a medical practioner administering lethal medication-sipped, popped or injected into a patient, like pathologist Dr. Kevorkian did for a decade (1990-1998).

Dr. Kevorkian (1928-2011) is the modern American symbol of assisted suicide and has brought to light controversial medical ethics, challenging the law with his free services, demanding that medical professionals accept their responsibility of "assisting their patients with death", and spurring the growth of hospice care. Through multiple trials and much publicity, his one-man campaign ended when he submitted a video which showed him injecting lethal chemicals into a patient rather than using his mechanism which allowed the patient to press a button. He was incarcerated for second-degree murder. While his work was both praised and abhorred, his impact was left on the medical and legal American world, as well as intellectual debate and even psychology class discussions.

Dr. Kevorkian 1996

When any assisted suicide topic is first brought up, the general public's first reaction is to think that allowing access to such an easy way out in our society will cause an upsurge in the suicide of depressed teenagers and the out-of-luck middle aged. Some think that in general suicide is an ethical issue because no one should be impatient to end their life, "Things could get better". Utilitarians think someone should never waste their talents, or their healthy body, or their brilliant mind. The religious extremist think that no one should destroy God's favorite creation, except God himself.

Giving someone the right resources to recover from tough times makes for a valid argument against suicide, however most suicides are only seriously considered under serious medical situations. Think for example being bed-ridden with brain cancer, or paralysis, or comatose, or any other terminal illness or chronic pain. Add a ripe old age and failing organs, dementia and pain, although you might relieve some symptoms, after the Five Stages of Death are through the patient has accepted death as a part of life. many patients and their families would rather not emotionally or financially suffer through the remaining years, months, weeks, or even days. Some treatments, such as life support, breathing aids, feeding tubes, cardiac pacemakers etc., can be refused, but under current laws a patient cannot ask to be killed.


Is this ethical? When a person who suffers through psychological distress (including chronically suicidal folk), we give them the resources and support they need to cope and overcome their situation, to redirect them away from violent pain. However, the terminally ill are denied the resources to overcome their illness, the only way they can, even if they are willing to do so of their own accord. Is this ethical to give life treatment to living individuals but deny death treatment to dying individuals? Is prolonging pain ethical, or cruelty?

For many people the answer is, yes, without this choice it is unethical. Compassion & Choice (formerly Hemlock and related organizations) is one such non-religious, non-profit group of people. They provide hospice-type resources, like client support, such as resources and information for pain and symptom treatment, and they provide professional education, such as training programs for professionals and media for the public. Their most impactful work is advocacy. They are hospice-advocates for better "national standards for end-of-life care," and fight against bills "that force invasive treatment." They are a proponent of assisted suicide as well, when the treatment is appropriate

When is it appropriate? When:


"Too many suffer needlessly."


Emotionally and financially, a terminal illness takes tolls on the patient and the family. When a terminally ill patient is ready to die, after pursuing satisfying end-of-life activities and ideas and coming to terms with death, the remaining time of their life can be spent in extreme anxiety, or extreme pain, or extreme discomfort, by the whole family, while money is spent to relieve these symptoms. A terminal cancer patient endures the violent effects of chemo therapy and treatment for its symptoms. While she has accepted that she will die, the comfort of having the option to opt-out at any time gives her the freedom to live her life to the fullest.


"Too many endure unrelenting pain."


When a person experiences pain every day of their life, it becomes difficult to want to maintain their daily health and well-being. They become desperate for relieve and destitute when symptoms prevail-their whole family does. When a lung cancer patient's severe pain caused her to be bed-ridden, the ability to take lethal medicine gave relief to her and her whole family as she passed away in their presence after a 15 day grace period.

"Too many turn to violent means at the end of life."


Without proper support or care for a dying person, they can take drastic measure to end their misery. Aside from violent attempts at suicide that we all hear about, even a dying person with lots of support, without assisted suicide, will take drastic measures. While there was no life support treatment to unplug, one paralyzed patient starved himself to death because he was incapable of taking medicine himself, and his daughter was not allowed to administer the medicine.


There will always be people who think painfully of death, and others who think peacefully of it. There are the people who will never accept that a person commits suicide, and there will be others who are grateful of their passing. More importantly, there will always be people who think ethically of suicide and others who will think unethically of assisted suicide. To criminalize assisted suicide does not mean less suicide, it means more pain, for the terminally ill, the chronically painful, the suicidally distressed, and everyone who wants to help them get better. After a rigorous therapy process and tens of doctors, 40% of lethal prescriptions in Oregon go unused-why? Because people feel better and enjoy life knowing they have options.