death and dying
...ication, she set at a table with all of them and played a game of Tock, knowing it would be her last night with them. As sad as it may seem, Colleen got what she wanted, a non-suffering death with all her loved ones around her, and one last good memory with her grandchildren (Yeoman 1). Most people would argue that legalizing physician-assisted suicide would lead to “selective killing of the elderly.” However, there is a state were this was legalized about 5 years ago. Oregon calls this the “Death with Dignity” Act. A study done on all the deaths in this state in the last 5 years shows that only one tenth of the all deaths are from physician-assisted suicide. Only a total of 129 people have used this option as a way of dying since they the law was introduced in 1998. “People say they want the option, but very few people are really interested in availing themselves of this option,” says Dr. Steve Miles, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethnics at the University of Minnesota Medical School (Physician 1). Some people say that we aren’t exposed to enough information on other options the terminally ill have such as hospice care. However, most of the ones that actually went through with the process were well-educated men and women with both health insurance and access to hospice care (Yeoman 2). According to Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, legalizing physician-assisted suicide forced Oregon’s healthcare system to improve palliative care and pain management (Physician 1).. If that was the case for Oregon, then most likely if the states accepted the “Death with Dignity” law, then all the states would be forced to improve their healthcare systems as well. Another reason why some people would oppose to this is for religious reasons. Some may say that helping a dying person end their life is a sin (Girsh 725). Also that God is the on...