Ethics

Nature, we live in, has always been a mystery to many of us at some point of time it gives us the best thing we ever want, and at the other, it has the worst to offer. Human beings have been the gem of this nature, the one who have been bestowed with the countless blessings of nature. The existence of human beings itself is a beauty of nature, and the human life cycle is a state of an art display of its supremeness. But at the same instant, this greatness could be a nightmare, and one would never wake up again. Over the years, we, the humans, have transformed this wood grass nature to a concrete road modern architecture. Nature is depleting and one way or the other, we are facing acute problems we had never thought of before. Our modernization is giving us the hard to believe reality of unknown never heard diseases, which has made human lives beg mercy to nature. Growing human needs, increasing pace of work, mounting work load, and ever growing modernization has flushed out its consequences over the nature. Today we stand at a point, where some of us are taken over by the acute illness some by mounting depression and some have lost the will to live. And in the end, we are not even capable enough to end our lives. We need some assistance.

Assisted Suicide What is it
Assisted suicideis the term assigned to the process of helping any incapable individual, by providing him sufficient means, to commit suicide. Some times assisted suicide is replaced with Mercy Killing or aid in dying. To understand both these terminologies, it is important to know its context. In most of the areas, mercy killing (killing a patient, according to his will, whos in an intractable pain) is considered legal, where as assisted suicide (providing means to help one end its life) is considered illegal. But eventually, mercy killing is an assisted suicide. The term euthanasia is assigned to ending patients life painlessly. It could be through seizing a life saving mechanism, or through prescribed dosage of life ending drugs. It has to be the decision of the patient himself. Though theres no legal requirement as such, but the patient asking for assistance must be psychologically treated so as to avoid such a drastic step. Assisted suicide, in one way or the other, it is the humans way of ending life willingly.

Moral Beliefs
There has always been a debate about whether or not assisted suicide is morally correct or not. Arguments from both the sides counter each other effectively. Some people believe that assisted suicide is morally right, as it helps the old people who are incapable of continuing their normal life, or the ones are unwilling to continue the life with lost dignity, or are no more able to bear their untraceable pain. The way everyone has right to live, they should have a right to die as well, if its his own decision. They believe that if they are unable to keep up with the progress of society, they should have liberty to decide upon their fate. If under depression, theyre willing to end their life, its their free will. If suicide is legal, so should be assisted one.

Should the life of a human be this cheap that all medically vulnerable people be assisted to death just because they cannot afford the medication or their pain is intractable Should a healthy man with a temporary bad patch in life be prescribed the life ending drug without any physiatrist consult In case of physician assisted suicide, medical organizations who have dedicated themselves to life saving mechanisms argue that the doctors take oath to do their best to save a human life, not kill one. Moreover many conservative groups argue that assisted suicide is the insult of human lives. One always will and strive to live, we are giving an option to everyone to legally kill each other. Many human rights organizations, especially the one concerning disables, argue that this will force many incapable people to end their lives as they cant live with their lives depending upon others. Its morally wrong to deprive one of his rights to live.

This could be the harsh reality one has to ask anyone to help assist ending ones own life. The decision of whether a person, who wants to commit such suicide, has any right of shaping his own fate This is more or less a religious issue, or the state of mind a person is in. In context of religions, Christians, Muslims, Jews and people of other religions, soul is the property of God who has bestowed our body with it. Its in his hand to give and take lives. So if anyone has decided to give up his life as per his free will, hes actually committing a sin by going against the sovereign powers of God. Religiously its a crime. But in U.S., there are tens and thousands of people who are Atheists or Humanists or Liberals etc who do not follow any God. So for them, its not morally correct to enforce the laws of religions they dont follow.

Developments in U.S.
In U.S., it has been a long foregoing debate that whether or not the assisted suicide be legalized or not. There has been considerable foreseen development since 1970s and for now, some states have clearly legalized assisted suicide, and some still have not defined clear laws concerning this dilemma. Currently it has been legalized in four of the states namely California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, New York, Oregon and Washington. In most of these states, there had been quite a democratic head war till the bills were finally passed. In Washington State, before initiative 1000 was passed to legalize assisted suicide, there was a whole campaign against the legalization of assisted suicide. In 2008, there was a 750,000 advertising campaign, featuring the star Martin Sheen, to create the awareness about what could be the consequences of this step. But eventually with the 58 to 42 majority, it was finally imposed in March 2009. At the same instant, assisted suicide was legalized in Oregon, as it was previously in 1997. In contrast, Montana State legalized it with only three restrictions, patient being terminally ill, is of sound mind and is being prescribed by the doctor. It made it easier for doctors to mentally depress the patient to exercise this option.

The Human Psyche
There are different dimensions of assisted suicide being discussed, prominently including the physician assisted suicide. Many examples from the past has depicted the need of assisted suicide is being provoked by the patients themselves who want to commit assisted suicide as their illness was only getting worse everyday. Robert Baxter, an X-Marine is one of the examples, because of whom assisted suicide was legalized in Montana. Many people argued about legalizing or making such suicide unlawful, but hardly any tried to stop the reasons that are actually creating such circumstances which are resulting in such options. Agreeably, a person whos terminally ill, almost in an irrecoverable position, if hes opting for death, PAS is somewhat understandable. But if a person whos of sound mind, and is under some depression, or is poor enough to carry out a health management plan, is PAS the most desirable option It could have been the mental depression because of lost job, maybe because of racism, or pressure from family. Social sciences have made enough progress, so has our technological skills, its time to develop a Depression meter to know how much the person is depressed to have commence an assisted suicide.

Some liberals argue that the way man is born with a free-will he has all the rights to decide what is good or what is not for himself. The way everyone has the right to live, has the right to die. In recent developments, it has been clearly allowed to choose whether to live or die. But under the established laws, it has to be the decision of ones own, not forced. Doctor Peter Rogatz argued that there are two important aspects to the PAS. One is the patients autonomy his freewill to choose his fate and other is the Physicians determination to minimize the suffering of his or her patient. The problem here is that if one is allowed to exercise this option, how the other circumstances can be controlled, possibly the role of persons colleagues around, his family, work and all other matters. If the person has opted for the assistance in killing himself, then the prescription should be sufficient enough to cause immediate or painless death as compared to expiring because of seized treatment.

Conclusion
So far, so long, what is ethical, what is not, what is moral, what is not, what is religious and what not, are all subjective topics to talk about. But we cannot leave everything just to the subjective-ness of the issue. There are some cases when assisted suicide is more desirous than the other and some when it is more appropriate than the other. A person, who is terminally ill, with no resources to extend his life for few more weeks, is more likely to opt for a prescribed medication to end his life as compared to a person whos considering it as an option. Having more than one option to choose from is always a better feeling, as it makes one confident that if I cant live healthily, I can at least die a mature death. In the contrast, ending a life is not the aim of modern development. They want to extend the life span of people, not to assist people kill themselves because they are socially deprived compared to others. This nature is indeed a mystery, it tells us how to live and when we live it, it does not even let many of us die without assistance.