Physician Assisted Suicide : An Exploration of the Dying Process

52 Physician Assisted Suicide: An Exploration of the Dying Process Kunwar Kaur Abstract Up until about two decades ago, the practice of physician-assisted suicide was prohibited in the United States. However, the issues surrounding the legalization of physicianassisted suicide have long been the topic of debate as proponents seek to change public policy. Just as keenly, though, the opposition seeks to alienate any ideas that may even remotely resemble physician aid in dying. With such a rigorous ongoing debate, it becomes necessary to step back and examine, once again, the underlying cause for the emanation of such a request in the first place. A shared belief by both sides is that the groups of people most susceptible to the outcome of this debate are terminally ill adults and terminally ill children. Consequently, it is crucial to ask the question, how exactly does having the option to request physician-assisted suicide influence the dying process of a terminally ill patient? The mere option of requesting physician-assisted suicide in the unfortunate event of a debilitating terminal illness shows promise in effectively eliminating suffering, demedicalizing the ever so medicalized death, promoting patient autonomy, and encouraging physician nonabandonment. Physician-assisted suicide, therefore, offers a wide scope of improvement to a terminal patient’s dying process.