Today I just learned of a court ruling in New Mexico one week ago that could legalize physician-assisted suicide in the state. This would let patients who are mentally stable and terminally ill to choose death via the physician. The patient would take a drug given to them by the physician that painlessly kills them. New Mexico would be the 5th state to allow this.
Obviously this creates a large controversy.
On one hand you have the people who support this law. People like Judge Nan Nash, the man who passed this ruling. Nash says,
“This Court cannot envision a right more fundamental, more private or more integral to the liberty, safety and happiness of a New Mexican than the right of a competent, terminally ill patient to choose aid in dying. If decisions made in the shadow of one's imminent death regarding how they and their loved ones will face that death are not fundamental and at the core of these constitutional guarantees, than what decisions are?”
Nash raises good points. He wants people who know they are going to die soon, possibly in a very painful way, to have the right to end their lives without pain. He sees this as a right.
On the other hand you have those who oppose this. People like Leon Kass, MD, PhD, a doctor against assisted suicide. He brings up the Hippocratic Oath, saying,
"The prohibition against killing patients... stands as the first promise of self-restraint sworn to in the Hippocratic Oath, as medicine's primary taboo: 'I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect'...”
The Hippocratic Oath is a set of guidelines that practicing physicians swear to abide by in their work. People against assisted suicide bring this up because it is in direct contrast with what the law would bring about.
I am still not sure about where I stand, as it is an enormous statement about yourself to take either side
There are many more arguments for and against, and you can find them at http://euthanasia.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000126
Thoughts? Want to voice your opinion? feel free to leave your comments below.
No comments:
Post a Comment