The Right to Die
The essay, “Legalized Assisted Suicide Reflects a Biased View of the Disabled” by Samuel R. Bagenstos (Bagenstos, 2009) is chosen for reflection against the article on Death with Dignity National Center’s website, named, “Death with Dignity and People with Disabilities” (Death with Dignity and People with Disabilities, n.d.). The latter supports physician-assisted suicide as a right to die with dignity even for disabled people, while the former refutes the argument heavily for disabled people.
Samuel R. Bagenstos is the Frank G. Millard Professor of Law, who recently has taught several courses, including Disability rights (Bagenstos, Samuel, n.d.). One of his accomplishments includes putting in effect the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act Regulations (Bagenstos, Samuel, n.d.). He has published several articles in many Law journals and Reviews, while also publishing many books which include Law and the Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement and Disability Rights Law: Cases and Materials (Bagenstos, Samuel, n.d.). Bagenstos has many credentials and is well-known for his field of study and specialization, which makes him entirely credible for the arguments he has shared against the Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS).
The Death and Dignity National Center is an NGO that advocated for Death with Dignity through several laws and model legislation, having work centers that strive for political, legislative and leaders that work towards the implementation of such legislatures within the state’s process, promoting and expanding the death with dignity (About Us, n.d.). This source proves to be entirely credible as it is a well-established NGO that has been working towards its cause by providing Oregon Law for many states while running campaigns in several states for supporting the idea of the right to die.
Both the authors can be deemed biased due to their devotion for a certain cause in their field of work; Bagenstos has immensely worked for the rights of disabled people, making his opinions biased towards the betterment of the group only, ignoring the collective and larger picture of the greater good that can be...
While on the other hand, the NGO has devoted itself to devising political models advocating the right to die, leading them to ignore the smaller groups issue against the collective benefits of the overall population. Both the authors have opposing viewpoints tilted towards their respective lines of work.
Bagenstos argues that even if the disabled people choose the right to die, it would be a product of their stigmatization and discrimination by society (Bagenstos, 2009) . The author clearly states in the end that there is no such protection offered for the people who might be pressured into it, which calls for a robust ban on Physician-Assisted Suicide. In the Death with Dignity’s article (Death with Dignity and People with Disabilities, n.d.), the source uses...…form of testimonials and quotes of different credible people to support the idea (Clark, 2007). This credibility can certainly be found in the death with Dignity article where different examples, testimonials are provided, even if the disability rights activists, making the source more wholesome and persuasive in its appeal.
Conclusively, the article of the Death with Dignity is more persuasive and appealing in conveying its arguments across the reader as it employs various structural points that help the reader establish more trust and understanding of the text. Even though both the articles come from well-known sources/authors with credibility, the evidence provided by the Death with Dignity article is more profound since it includes different examples and testimonies to back its argument. The article Death with Dignity, counters all the basic arguments presented by Bagenstos through supporting it with evidence. This is why I believe that Death with Dignity is better structured and is more persuasive than the Bagenstos article, which simply puts forward a plethora of personal opinions and flawed arguments irrelevant to the main topic. To refute the right to die for disabled people, it overlooks the side where the disabled want to end their sufferings and pain due to their illness. Death and Dignity article convinces more about being supportive of the idea of physician-assisted suicide, in short, the right to die with dignity, which is the right of every person, including the…
