Assisted Suicide Should Be Legalized. There Is Essay

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Assisted suicide should be legalized. There is no rational argument against it, only cartoonish arguments based on superstition and feigned morality. In the real world, we all must die, and there is no case, either moral or intellectual, that one can make to argue that we should not have the right to control our final moments. Over the course of this essay, I will illustrate in no uncertain terms that the right to die with dignity is a right reserved for the individual alone, and that no amount of interference on the part of external parties -- especially not those who are entirely unaffected by the death in question -- can be justified.

The American Medical Association (2013) frames the issue as one of ethics. It deems the issue as a threat to "the very core of the medical profession's ethical integrity." It argues that physician-assisted suicide is "fundamentally inconsistent" with the physician's professional role. This is a gross mischaracterization of the role of physicians. Physicians do not exist to save and prolong lives -- they exist to serve the needs of their patients and to make their lives better. Yes, prohibition of doctor-assisted suicide is in the Hippocratic Oath, but doctors today do not worship Apollo. At what point does the AMA, or any other professional body, have the right to pick and choose what elements of the Oath are sacred and what can be discarded? To do so undermines the AMA's use of the Oath as a crutch on this issue.

The AMA has predicated its stance on the absurd notion that death can be avoided.

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It cannot, and terminally-ill patients recognize that. They realize that when one is near death, there is no further contribution that they make to the world. How the patient chooses to deal with that reality is entirely their own choice to make.

The New England Journal of Medicine highlights another stance, that assisted suicide creates a slippery slope. The slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy, rejected outright as a legitimate rhetorical device. What may happen at a future date is entirely speculative. That an esteemed publication as the NEJM is willing to resort to such rhetorical weakness to support its position shows just how tenuous that position is. Many within the medical establishment -- to say nothing of the superstitious among us -- are unable to address the question of assisted suicide directly and honestly. They must resort to arguing with the straw man who lives on the slippery slope (Ertelt, 2013). They know that their convictions -- while strong -- are not rooted in logical analysis of facts.

The facts are clear. We have built a society on a strong foundation of individual. We have rights of liberty and life, and all of Western society is built on the idea of free will. That will and those rights extend right from the moment of birth until the moment of death. We do not lose our fundamental human rights -- the rights our ancestors fought for and which are inscribed in our Constitution -- once we are diagnosed with a terminal illness. Physicians also have rights -- they can choose whether to assist people with suicide, or.....

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