Free Essay - Medical Assisted Suicide

Physician-assisted suicide is a controversial topic and a possible cause of ethical dilemmas in medicine. Medical assisted suicide revolves around the decision to end the human life of a terminally ill patient to alleviate the physical, financial, and emotional agony that they and their caregivers may be going through. Those advocating for medically assisted suicide point out painless death as the best way to solve the problems that the patient undergoes. An ethical dilemma arises when nurses and physicians who must preserve human life end it. Their moral obligation is torn between saving the patient’s life by keeping them alive long enough to try and overcome the medical problem or end the suffering through a painless and peaceful death. Legal concerns surrounding medical-assisted suicide cause ethical and moral dilemmas (Mehlum et al., 2020). For instance, the caregivers can advocate for assisted suicide for patients who they feel cause them a lot of trouble. Additionally, patients may make rational decisions regarding assisted suicide due to the pain that may end after a short while. An excellent example is that of accident survivors who feel they may never get better. Therefore, facilitating the death of such a patient is morally wrong.

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Biblically, God is the only giver of life. He is the only one who decides who lives or dies. He also determines the time when a person dies. Some of the applicable biblical principles of medical-assisted suicide include God’s purpose in human life, the role of suffering as part of being human and human beings, especially physicians and nurses being co-creators with God. According to the bible, suffering are part of human life. It is the only way through which God manifests in the lives of people. The book of Romans in verse 5:3 points out that “rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance.” (De Villiers, 2016; Nolen, 2017). Therefore, killing terminally ill patients to escape the sufferings violates God’s will on their lives. The terminal medical conditions could be a test on humans so that physicians, scholars, and researchers can develop better ways to deal with such diseases in the future. Medical-assisted suicide, in this case, inhibits further research on terminal illnesses (Weber et al., 2017).

References

De Villiers, D. E. (2016). May Christians request medically assisted suicide and euthanasia?. HTS Theological Studies, 72(4), 1-9. Retrieved on August 30, 2020, from http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-94222016000400090

Mehlum, L., Schmahl, C., Berens, A., Doering, S., Hutsebaut, J., Kaera, A., ... & Simonsen, S. (2020). Euthanasia and assisted suicide in patients with personality disorders: a review of current practice and challenges. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 7(1), 1-7. Retrieved on August 30, 2020, from https://bpded.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40479-020-00131-9

Nolen, L. (2017). Help Through Difficult Times. Ranch and Rural Living, 98(6), 24.

Weber, C., Fijalkowska, B., Ciecwierska, K., Lindblad, A., Badura-Lotter, G., Andersen, P. M., ... & Lynöe, N. (2017). Existential decision-making in a fatal progressive disease: how much do legal and medical frameworks matter?. BMC palliative care, 16(1), 80. Retrieved on August 30, 2020, from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12904-017-0252-6