Assisted Suicide

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Introduction

Assisted suicide is a contentious issue that has gained traction from various stakeholders such as humanitarian commissions, medical practitioners, scholars, and the governments. Assisted death, also known as euthanasia, is the act of providing intentional help in terminating the life of another person: at least the person willing to die has a full concept concerning the action, and they are eager to take the course and its implication. As a result of adverse connotation within the word “assisted suicide,” many people prefer to use lesser aggravating words such as “euthanasia, mercy killing, or physician-aided-death.” Various situations guarantee the application of assisted suicide, but these decisions do not come without a fair share of criticism from the members of the society. On the other side, some feel that the practice is unacceptable for application, but again, there are genuine cases that require the intervention of aided death mostly in the case of medical requirement. Euthanasia is relevant and applicable in helping patients who meet a specific medication criteria; however, the practice should be regulated to avoid misuse in the application. 

History of assisted suicide

Taking an active part in helping another person to die is not a new phenomenon since the practice has been in the medical field for decades. According to (Pickert, 2009), when one mention the term “mercy killing,” what comes to people’s mind is the epic battle of the 1990s starred by a doctor who had made euthanasia his specialty in the “Doctor Death.” The practice was used and aimed at assisting patients to die at the same time with an objective of reducing the human population during the era of war. However, this was not the initial inception of mercy killing in the United States: the practice started back in 1906 when the euthanasia bill was drafted in Ohio and consequently in London (1935). In the early...