Should a mentally competent, terminally ill person be allowed to choose the time and method of his or her death? This has been a largely debated, hot button topic as far back as the days of the ancient Greeks. For example, while Plato basically disagreed with suicide, he felt it should be an option in extreme circumstances, such as in cases of u

know the patient well enough to understand the reasons for his or her request. 7) No

physician, absent a close preexisting relationship (which would be ideal), must get to

judged medically appropriate. But once they are assured that the patient has made a valid

unrelenting suffering. 2)…must understand his or her condition or prognosis,

Palliative care is used to ease the physical and mental pain associated with terminal illness (Foley 293; Byock 116). An international panel of the World Health Organization defined palliative care as “the active total care of patients whose disease is not responsive to curative therapies” (qtd. in Foley 293). Many people agree that some palliative measures should at the very least be attempted before assisted suicide is decided upon. Hospice is a type of palliative care. Not only does hospice provide the terminally ill patient with the medication necessary to ease pain and suffering during their final days, but it also goes a long way in helping to ease the mental anguish of the patient’s family by providing emotional support.

Dying with dignity has become a key issue in the fight to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Not only can indignity result from physical side effects of terminal illness, such as invalidism, but it can also come from unsympathetic caregivers, and neglectful family. The issue has ultimately become one of choice; people feel more secure knowing the choice is there for them to make. “There is a growing awareness that loss of dignity and of those attributes that we associate particularly with being a human are the factors that most commonly reduce patients to a state of unrelieved misery and desperation” (Rogatz).

Some topics in this essay:
, Hospital Association, Peter Rogatz, Registered Nurse, English Dictionary, Emanuel Netherlands, Jack Kevorkian, Barbara Bates, Hastings Center, Health Organization, physician-assisted suicide, palliative care, terminally ill, terminally ill patients, ill patients, assisted suicide, hospice care, loved ones, physician-assisted suicide legalized, oxford english dictionary, pain suffering, medical science, according dr, competent terminally ill, quality palliative care,