Assisted Suicide

Assisted Suicide

Kovorkian's killing spree targeted people with disabilities. The problem is that there are many doctors and nurses out there that are doing the same thing or at list supporting this issue. I agree that in some rather rear cases assisted suicide can be an act of compassion and can offer the chance of living this earth with some dignity and on one's own terms. It sounds wonderful and in a perfect world it would be easy to determine when that would be the best thing for one's self, a loved one or a patient. However, in the real world, there are a few things we must do first, in order to be able to make such determination. First, we must make sore that only one person never makes this decision. Such decision should be made by the patient, in collaboration with family members and loved ones and with the advice and help of one or more medical doctors. Second of all we must consider a few other things; one that the people involved in such decision have the patients best interest at heart, two, we have to take in consideration the ability to reason of all the people involved. Three, we should make certain that they are able to put all other feelings that might influence this decision aside. Nevertheless, we are to consider the religious beliefs of all that are involved and how these beliefs might influence them. Moreover I think every family should have a plan just in case we will ever be faced with such situation.

Decisions like this rise far to many question of where to draw the line between right, wrong, between compassion and crime, and other highly sensitive alike issues. Therefore we must have a system in place, which will never allow any one person to make such decision. If we ever allow only one person to make this decision, patients will ask for assisted suicide because they are depressed and in too much physical pain, doctors will assist patients in suicide based on their medical opinion (which might be wrong) and other opinions such as cost of medical care or organ donation. Moreover, family members will have the opportunity to make such decision based on anger, frustration, and financial problems or simply because it otherwise be too painful to watch a family member suffer. Because my mother haze a heart condition and went through a heart surgery already, we have talked about all the "what if's". Therefore, my family and I have developed a plan. We know she had inured more then enough and that she does not whish to ever go through that again, unless there is hope for buying her a significant amount of time and that that during such time she will also have quality of life. Mind you, we are all aware what significant amount of time and quality of life means to her. For instance, what she refers to as quality of life is: number one to be conscious and aware of her surroundings; number two, to have the ability to communicate in some form and share experiences with those around her, and number three not to endure such suffering that can not be helped through medication. We know for shore that being stuck on a hospital bed, on a respirator or in a coma is not something she wants unless there is hope for recovery. Moreover, since I am the strong one in the family (besides