In the United States one's choice to live according to their beliefs and choices are duly recognized and embraced, but terminally ill patients who wish to choose to die with dignity instead of a painful and prolonged death, oftentimes face enormous challenges to obtain life ending drugs. The right to die should be a matter of personal choice. Denying mentally capable individuals the right to end their lives in a peaceful manner is a denial of their self-determination of individual rights and freedom of choice and therefore physician assisted suicide should be legal in all States.
Physician assisted suicide occurs when a physician provides a patient with the means to end his or her life, which is usually a prescription for a fatal dose of drugs. The patient chooses the environment where they would like to commit the act, without the doctor being present. Long ago, a patient's input in the medical treatment they received was minimal. Then in the 1900s, doctors in the United States began implementing the standard of informed consent. Doctors were required to explain available treatment options and to obtain patient's consent before treatment. Patients are required to listen to the doctor's knowledgeable and experienced medical advice, but the ultimate decisions are the patients'. Minors the mentally unstable or unconscious patients, unable to grant consent themselves, are represented by family members or legal guardians. .
"First, there ought to be a legal right to physician assisted suicide in order to enable qualified patients to avoid unnecessary suffering. Some patients enduring intolerable, unrelievable suffering as well as some terminally ill patients who are enduring lesser but still severe suffering need this legal right, for they cannot escape from their suffering without it. Those who will die within hours or a very few days will soon obtain relief without taking any action, and those who are on life-prolonging intensive care can often end their lives simply by refusing continued treatment.
