Physician-Assisted Suicide. Specifically, it Will Show Why

¶ … physician-assisted suicide. Specifically, it will show why I disagree with physician-assisted suicide. Physician-assisted suicide is too much like playing God. When people die should be up to their bodies and God, not a doctor who is not involved with them or their families.

In many religions, suicide is a sin, and if you commit suicide, you will go to Hell. This refers to any kind of suicide, even physician-assisted suicide. "As unrepentant simmer, suicides were denied burial in consecrated ground and expected to end in Hell" (Van Den Haag 136).

Even if it is not a sin, it is not normal. Normal people do not commit suicide; they have something wrong with them mentally or physically, and cannot deal with it, or deal with the pressures of life. People who commit suicide with the help of a physician because of a terminal disease are no different from anyone else. They will die when they are meant to die, and not when they choose to die.

Most physicians are afraid to help people commit suicide because of the laws against it. Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who is a famous suicide doctor, is an exception, and he has been in jail several times because he has helped people die, because helping someone commit suicide is a felony, even if they have the "right" to die. Even he will only help people who are terminally ill with an incurable disease. Still, the decision to live is not the patient's, at the end it is the physician's, and that is not right, or even moral. A physician, no matter how good or knowledgeable he is, should not play God, it is wrong, and it is immoral.

Some people who agree with physician-assisted suicide say the person has a "right to die," but I think they have a "right to live." Everyone has a reason to live, even when things seem insurmountable, and there are new drugs and cures being discovered all the time. Christopher Reeves is a good example. He said after the accident that paralyzed him he wanted to die. But he has carried on, and not only has he created an organization that raises money for other people with spinal injuries, he lives a busy and productive life. He shows why people who are seriously injured, and have "no hope" of recovery should not give up; they have a lot more to give to the world and the people that love them. If people have the "right" to die, what is the difference if they take their own life, or take another life? How is one life more important than another is? What gives anyone the "right" to die? They were put here on Earth to serve some purpose, and it was not a purpose to be cut short because they do not feel like being here any longer. Life is not easy, but it is better than the alternative, no matter what.

There is another thing that many people do not think about when they think about physician-assisted suicide, and that is someone who cannot make the decision on their own, and their relatives make it for them. "How can we make sure that no one will be pressed to end his or her life by self-interested relatives, friends, enemies, or caretakers?" (Van Den Haag 140). If they are pressured into committing suicide, no one would ever know, and it would not only be morally wrong, it would be horrible. People that even think about that are monsters. There is also the question of terminally ill children. The right to die laws are "limited to adults" (Carter 143), and so what happens if a child wants to commit suicide? Do they have the right to die, too?