The Case of Life vs. Death

     Assisted suicide has become, in recent years, as touchy of a topic as abortion. With the conviction of Dr. Kevorkian for the supposed unjust murder of his patients whom he practiced assisted suicide, there has been a clear division among voters. From the terminally ill, to those who will never know a life without pain, more and more support towards the legalization of assisted suicide is gained. Of those that support, they share a similar idea; the government cannot control someone's right to die, when the benefits far outweigh the negatives. The right to die is a freedom that is gained out of pain and financial sufferage.

        The main point of discussion is the patient's "right to die". The right to die can best be described as a freedom allowing a person to decide when the medical outcomes and various pains are too much to handle further. Some doctors include financial burdens as another reason to implement this right. Many doctors and politicians argue that the right to die can be abused by those who do not properly know how to use it. In the case of Vacco v. Quill, the ACLU brief touches on this stating that "the right of a competent, terminally ill person to avoid excruciating pain and embrace a timely and dignified death bears the sanction of history and is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. A state's categorical ban on physician assistance to suicide -- as applied to competent, terminally ill patients who wish to avoid unendurable pain and hasten inevitable death -- substantially interferes with this protected liberty interest and cannot be sustained"(Top 10 Pros and Cons - Euthanasia). In this case, the briefing reiterates the hypocritical beliefs the government has towards the legalization of assisted suicide. Those who don't have the capacity to make the decision on their own simply will be unable to make the choice. Restrictions do not take away from the right, it simply refines it. Joe Messereli, of Balanced Politics, states that "the right to die should be a fundamental right to all people" (Messereli). He, along with many doctors and patients, see the right to die as something similar to the right of religious freedom, or the rights given to gun owners. Both the right to practice faith openly and to hold a firearm are legal and all hold certain restrictions that allow for a certain degree of control and safety, but something that could save a lifetime of pain and indignity, for those who could make the decision, remains illegal.

        A prime example of the pain felt by many patients debating assisted suicide are found in a very emotional wing of hospitals. Cancer patients, currently going through intense chemotherapy don't always have a pleasant outcome awaiting them. They put their body through immense stress in order to obtain a sense of health, but all they accomplish is the indignity of living a sheltered, hospitalized life. Cases of severe and incurable cancer, or other painful and degenerative diseases can not only leave a patient in great pain, but they can turn patients into feeble and weak bodies that show no signs of a prime. The option of having a controlled and human death allow "patients [to] die with dignity rather than have the illness reduce them to a shell of their former selves" (Messereli). Many terminally ill patients go through tremendous amounts of surgeries or medications, and sometimes both. The cocktail of drugs they digest eventual wear out their bodies and minds even more than the disease alone.

        All the medication and treatment starts to add up for the family of these patients. These costs often become too much for the patients and their families. Those who can't provide for themselves, get help from the health care system. The only downside to that plan, stands to be the funds of which our health care are built upon, and the use of health care. In fact, during the last two months of the year 2010, "Medicare paid 55 billion to keep terminally ill patients alive" ("The Cost of Keeping the Terminally Ill Alive). Dartmouth's Dr. Elliot Fisher gives statistics to prove her statement that is as follows:

       "Supply drives its own demand. If you’re running a hospital, you have to keep that hospital full of paying patients. In order to, you know, to meet your payroll. In order to pay off your bonds.When it comes to expensive, hi-tech treatments with some potential to extend life, there are few restrictions.  By law, Medicare cannot reject any treatment based upon cost.

        It will pay $55,000 for patients with advanced breast cancer to receive the chemotherapy drug Avastin, even though it extends life only an average of a month and a half; it will pay $40,000 for a 93-year-old man with terminal cancer to get a surgically implanted defibrillator if he happens to have heart problems too" (The Cost of Keeping the Terminally Ill Alive).

Fisher explains how the costs of keeping a patient of various illnesses alive impacts the financial stability. The costs of simple medication can be greater than what you would pay for a new car or boat. After months, or years, of being put through this burden, the most reasonable and affordable way out lies in the hands of a doctor willing to euthanize. Time is money, and with so much time being spent on these patients, the price rises to match.

        Assisted suicide poses many pro's and con's. All of them seem to lead back to the main argument circling the right to die. This right encloses pain and financial suffering as a patients reasoning behind wanting to die for their own sake, and the sake of their family. Why should we hold the government in charge of telling our patients what they can and cannot do with their final breath?