Oregon Death and Dignity Act Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Oregon Death and Dignity Act - adjudicate ExampleThe debate centers on individual autonomy, whether or not patients who suffer from extreme pain and choose a perch or degenerative disease such as Alzheimers, AIDS and multiple induration have the right to an assisted end of the type and time of their own choosing.Active euthanasia occurs when the medical exam professionals, or another person, deliberately do something that causes the patient to die (Ethics, 2006) A doctors involvement in the procedure could be to either prescribe a lethal dose of drugs with the talk intent of ending a life or by intravenously inserting a needle into the terminal patient who then activates a switch that administers the fatal dose (Naji et al, 2005). Many terminally ill population choose to end their own life to evade the previously discussed detriments of a terminal illness. Suicide order are by far the highest among the elderly population for this reason. If these people are going to commit su icide, which is better, controlled, benignant doctor-assisted suicide or clumsy attempts like taking sleeping pills, jumping off a building, or firing a bullet into ones head? (Messerli, 2007).Only one state, Oregon, and three countries, Switzerland, Belgium and The Netherlands, allow assisted suicide. The virtue in Oregon was challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court early last year and was upheld by a vote of six to three. In 2001, President scrub attempted to derail the Oregon law permitting euthanasia stating that assisted suicide wasnt a legitimate medical purpose. The justices, however, were not convinced by Bushs argument. Justice Sandra Day OConnor pointed out that doctors participate in the administration of lethal injections to death row inmates (Roh, 2006). The Oregon laws are shaped after those in the Netherlands and are designed to ensure min opinions have been consulted and there is an imminent presumption of death