My Ethical Views on Physician Assisted Suicide Physician assisted suicide is immoral in the case of people who are alive and desire to terminate their life. However, there are extreme cases when hastening the dying process is justified in the circumstances of individuals who are in intense physical impairment. Physician-assisted suicide is defined as the practice where a physician provides a patient with a lethal dose of medication, upon the patient's request, which the patient desires to use to end his or her life. The Harvard Medical School conferred that we are “dead” when there is permanent loss of consciousness in the higher brain, even though one may not be flat lined. The idea for physician assisted suicide is for a medical doctor help someone die who is still alive but desires to terminate their own life due to an impairment or illness which causes suffering upon the individual. The question we must consider is where do we cross the line between suicide and murder. Although suicide or attempted suicide is legal in every state, assisting in a suicide is considered illegal in every state except Oregon. Additionally, the Code of Medical Ethics section 2.211 declares that physician assisted suicide is "fundamentally incompatible with the physician's role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks." There are too many risks associated with physician assisted suicide that managing such a factor would be impossible to control. Even the best medical professionals are human beings with the potential for error. An undiagnosed or untreated mental illness can add to a patients desire to die, which in the case of physician assisted suicide, would be a type of murder since the patient is not in a state of mind to make such a decision. “Improperly managed physical symptoms” can add to physician error and end a life too early when an individuals suffering...
