Should Assisted Suicide be Legal?

Assisted suicide should not be legal, because in a sense it is murder. Assisted suicide or commonly known as euthanasia is the process of painlessly helping a terminally ill person to die. When I first started reading about euthanasia I thought that an individual had the right to take their own life if that is what they wished to do; however, when I continued to research the subject I found that euthanasia is different from suicide and is more like murder. Suicide is “the act of intentionally killing oneself (American Heritage College Dictionary).” Euthanasia is “the act of ending the life of an individual suffering from a terminal illness or incurable condition (American Heritage College Dictionary).” I realized that euthanasia is murder. Someone else, whoever that person may be, is killing the person that wishes to die, because the individual can not do it themselves or what ever else the situation may be.

Murder is “the premeditated unlawful killing of one human being by another (American Heritage College Dictionary).” Therefore, since euthanasia requires another individual to complete the act of ending ones life and is unlawful in forty-nine of the fifty states in the United States of America, then that, places euthanasia underneath the definition of murder by being unlawful and premeditated by the individuals that are planning to complete the act. Euthanasia though used to assist those that are going to die eventually or are in extreme pain and wish to end their suffering, is murder. People that stand for euthanasia will argue with this, because of the fact that the individual that wishes to die is hurting. However, how heartless this may sound euthanasia is unlawful and premeditated making it murder.

Assisted suicide should be legalized. Who are we to say that an individual that is dying can not end their pain and suffering? People who are against this wonderful relief of suffering are using dysphemism, “words used to produce a negative effect on a listener’s or reader’s attitude toward something or down tone the positive associations it might have (Moore and Parker p.119)”. Assisted suicide is not murder but an act of kindness to another that is in pain. Assisted suicide is an outlet that a professional can give when the pain medicine no longer works and there is nothing else that the doctor can do for their patient.