Should Physicians Assist Patients Who Wish to Commit Suicide?
by A balanced view on a controversial subject.
How has the law worked thus far? Initially even some experts sympathetic to the notion of assisted suicide had qualms about the Oregon legislation. Their concern was that doctors might be to willing to hand out lethal doses of medication. “But those of us who were a little skeptical have been proved wrong.” Says Dr. Sherwin Nuland, a bioethicist and clinical professor of surgery at Yale University, and author of 1995’s best selling book ‘How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter’. “It turns out the law has worked beautifully.”
Likewise, a book appeared in the late 1990’s espousing practical guidelines for assisted suicide. It is entitled “Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying” by Derek Humprey. One of the reviews gave this brief synopsis: “A controversial guide advocating assisted suicide for the terminally ill and dying also provides practical advice on how to plan and carry out a suicide.”
In conclusion both sides of this polemical topic have an enormous stake in what will transpire in the future. How well one side prevails will be largely based in the public arena, and that in turn will influence public opinion. Never the less, the topic of physician assisted suicide is here to stay.
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