Since the creation of man, death has been an integral part of humanity. Despite daily experiencing our friends and relatives die, there seems to be a challenge of regarding answering the question when and how to do, since we all succumb to the thanatophobia issue. It is the tendency to mortality. Nevertheless, different people have different reasons for wanting to die. For example, we always find it in the news headlines that so and so has committed suicide due to some reasons (Quill e al. p.49-64). Deciding to take away your life is a criminal offense in most countries across the globe. The assisted methods are two; euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). However, the scope of this paper confines itself o euthanasia.
PAS is different from euthanasia in that while the former advises patients to take drugs that could induce death upon a thoroughly enlightening them, the latter, of course after the patient making the decision, helps them in inducing death as Hazel Biggs puts it (p.41) narrates. In other words, in the PAS, patients competently participate in initiating death while in euthanasia, the physician does the last bit of the patient's.
In the infamous case of Robert Baxter, a citizen of Montana State demanded a court to grant him the permission of taking away his life after a diagnosis that he indicated he suffered from a terminal disease. In his lawsuit, he demanded an authorization to die in dignity by the use of any physician induced method rather see the disease humiliate him to his death. Fortunately, he did not live long enough to see himself done justice as the ruling to grant his wish to die with dignity came out when he had long died. Baxter set a record of fighting for authorization to die in dignity facilitated the passing of the relevant law in some American states. Based on this story, then the question arises as to whether governments should allow physician induced deaths for the people who wish to use them.
