The practice of assisted suicide is a relatively new phenomenon within society and has gained significant ground within the past two decades, but there is still a lot of work that can be done in order to push forward with these progressive and humane practices. Assisted suicide is currently a legal practice with in four American states: Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and most recently California. The state of California passed their law just last year and shows that this is still an issue being discussed by state governments in current times. The bill titled SB-128 End of Life, and was passed in the year 2015-scheduled to go into effect into 2016. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB128 This California bill, along with all similar bills passed in the states previously mentioned, allows people in terribly unfortunate situations to be given a choice in their own fate. The procedure of assisted suicide should be legalized in America because it should be an inherent right for those of a free nation-allowing those with untreatable illness and disease to end their life with dignity and free of agony within the comfort of their own home, compared to living a short time longer within a hospital where they will ultimately pass away All the while they accumulate large medical bills which further burden their families.
Although America is making progress in the motion for legalized assisted suicide there are still many critics today, that have been around since the first bill was passed in Oregon in the year 1994. Even some medical professionals think that a terminally ill patient does not in fact have the right to die. This is because some doctors take a Hippocratic Oath, but it is worth noting that this oath is only taken by a minority of practicing doctors. The premise of the Oath is to ensure doctors are solely in their profession for the sake of healing and never to administer fatal medicine.
