The Right to Die Physician Assisted Suicide

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 achieved through PAS. 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 different instances and information supporting the idea that the disabled people also have the right to choose their death through examples of people with disability or families with disabled people. This proves to be strong evidence against supporting the stances that disabled people have a right to end their suffering and pain.
The main argument of Bagenstos is rooted in the idea of the right to live, making the arguments that the disabled have the equal right to live like any normal person as they are normal, and their life is equally important and valuable. This claim is supported by the evidence that society’s mindsets are the sole reason that PAS would be considered rational for disabled people since their life is considered ‘undignified’ by them (Bagenstos, 2009). This argument seems inconsistent as the whole point is understanding the pain and suffering of people, including the disabled, and making it easier to exercise their right to die, which has nothing to do with the society’s beliefs and notions about the disabled people. On the other hand, the Death and dignity article focuses on the right to die for the disabled people as well, explaining how they are treated equally in the law by not qualifying them for the death with dignity law only based on their disability. This counters the above argument of disabled people being considered normal or equal. The Death with Dignity article also uses the supporting claims of the disability rights activist themselves like Joan Tollifson, who himself doesn’t think that the right to die will undermine the value of disabled people’s life (Death with Dignity and People with Disabilities, n.d.).
Bagenstos builds upon the idea that if Euthanasia is considered legal, disabled people will be a burden to society, and they’d be pressured emotionally into exercising PAS (Bagenstos, 2009). In short, the author iterates the idea that the social stigma will leave disabled people with lesser autonomy to choose their right to die or live. The Death with Dignity article counters the argument through the testimony of Executive Director of the Disability Rights Oregon that he never received any such complaints (Death with Dignity and People with Disabilities, n.d.).
The writing strategy used is persuasive as both authors are trying to convince the reader of their viewpoints through making arguments and providing evidence to support their stances. Repetition of ideas is important for successful persuasive writing. Still, it should be good repetition with various examples, stories to iterate the same idea (Clark, 2007), which can be found in the Death with Dignity article, while Bagenstos essay repeated the ideas with framing it in different ways based on his own opinions. Both the writings provide reasoning for their arguments, making it persuasive while also making sure that they are conveying a consistent set of ideas. For a good piece of writing, social proof is another factor to increase the credibility and persuasiveness of the idea to the reader, which can be in the 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 disabled.
References
About Us. (n.d.). Retrieved from Death With Dignity: https://www.deathwithdignity.org/about/
Bagenstos, S. R. (2009). Legalized Assisted Suicide Reflects a Biased View of the Disabled.
Bagenstos, Samuel. (n.d.). Retrieved from Michigan Law: https://www.law.umich.edu/FacultyBio/Pages/FacultyBio.aspx?FacID=sambagen
Clark, B. (2007, September 26). Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques.
Death with Dignity and People with Disabilities. (n.d.). Retrieved from Death With Dignity: https://www.deathwithdignity.org/death-dignity-people-disabilities/