Mary Thompson, 35 years old, was recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. This disease, which results in progressive paralysis, can move rapidly through the body in less than two years. There is no known cause of ALS and no known cure. It is always fatal. Thompson was devastated by the news and knew that there was only one thing she could do. She didn't want to be a burden for her family so she asked her physician to prescribe a lethal medication for her so she could end her life. Within that week Thompson was dead. This is known as "physician assisted suicide (PAS)." Many states in the United States have banned PAS. Oregon is the only state that passed the Death with Dignity Act. Even though many terminally ill patients decide to end their suffering by ending their life, doctors shouldn't be able to assist them. Doctors are supposed to sustain and preserve the patients" life instead of killing them. Therefore, Physician Assisted Suicide is unethical.
Assisted suicide has great potential for abuse. People without family support or adequate finances, as well as people suffering from depression, are pressured to choose death. "Suicide is often a desperate step taken by individuals who consider their problems so intractable as to make their situations hopeless" (Balch). Patients suffering from a terminal illness feels that they have no control over what they are going through. Therefore, many patients believe that death is the only way to solve the problem. However, human-rights activists argue that patients must have the freedom to choose when they want to die. But, if the patient is suffering from clinical depression then he or she cannot make his or her own decisions. " Suicidal individuals tend to think in a very rigid, dichotomous way, seeing everything in "all or nothing" terms; they are unable to see any range of genuine alternatives" (Balch).