Perscribed Suicide

Before a dive is taken into the controversial issue of euthanasia or medical assisted suicide, lets take a quick moment to clarify the two terms: Euthanasia is when a physician deliberately and directly administers a substance to cause death. Medical Assisted Suicide is when the doctor prescribes the patient with a lethal dose of medication which he/she will take when they are ready to die.
Some doctors say “they” couldn’t stand to see a patient suffer so euthanasia or medical assisted suicide was the right or noble thing to do. But, there is nothing noble about intentional killing. Pain and suffering are not grounds to kill someone. Euthanasia and medical assisted suicide undermine the physician’s role as a healer.
So, what’s noble about it? Both terms listed above involve taking another persons life. One involves the doctor directly while the other indirectly. The only difference between suicide and murder is the person committing the act. In a court of law if someone were to stand trial before a jury because they had knowledge of someone wanting to commit suicide and provided them with the means to do so, they would be charged with negligent homicide. Negligent homicide is a felony with a maxim sentence up to 20 years in prison and/or a fine up to $50,000.
Proponents argue the patient should be granted the right to die due to pain and suffering. In “The Case for Physician-Assisted Suicide,” Richard Hull writes, “the [severely compromised patients] ability to demand-and-receive physician aid in dying may be severely compromised patients’ only way to tell caregivers that something inhumane stalks them: the inhumanity of neglect and despair” This false dilemma sounds more like an issue of the hospice care rather than illness. Human beings naturally learn from pain and suffering. The pain and suffering experienced produces character, and character produces perseverance and perseverance produces hope. Taking a life because it does not equate to the “ideal” living arrangement or pain and suffering is not good enough. Not to down play terminal illness, but terminal just means the cure isn’t available-yet. If no one is ill then cures can’t be found, if cures can’t be found the ill can’t be healed, and if killing the ill is the answer then everyone is in trouble.
The physician’s main role is, or supposed to be, to sustain life for as long as it can be sustained, exhausting all resources available. How would the confidence in the relationship between patient and doctor sit if it were perfectly legal to prescribe or administer death? The patient would question where the physician stands, therefore undermining his role as a healer. For example, a congregation has found out that a pastor has cheated on his wife. Most of the congregation will now question, does this pastor really practice what he preaches, therefore undermining his role as a pastor. So, would the patient feel comfortable knowing the approach of sustaining life by any means necessary has been struck with a low blow by to an effortless fix all cure? Most likely not, due to the shortcomings of man many patients will lose their life through misdiagnosis, laziness, and selfish motivations through the practice of euthanasia and medical assisted suicide.
A physician who chooses to take a life and calls it a noble thing or takes a life due to pain and suffering undermines and tarnishes his/her role as a healer. Take an all pro athlete immobilize him/her for life and everything they have ever known is gone. Take an everyday citizen stricken him/her with a terminal illness and every thing they have ever known is gone. As a result of sin, we have all been stricken with an illness that leads to death and one day we will all die. Just some will die sooner than others. Euthanasia and medical assisted suicide is a cheap way humans will try to take control of something that is uncontrollable and to calm the fear of the process of dying. It’s murder and if murder is to be legalized based on an illness, the patient isn’t the only one ill.