Should assisted suicide be legal?

Over the years, Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) has gained traction in the medical world. PAS refers to the medical intervention where the doctors or the consulting physicians provide the means to the patients under their care to take their own lives. This procedure is also known as assisted suicide and has the medical fraternity fiercely divided over its administration. 

Assisted suicide is different from euthanasia. Both procedures involve the willful ending of life, usually through medical intervention. The difference lies in who brings about the death of a subject. In euthanasia, the consulting physician administers a fatal dose of a killer drug after the patient concerned has requested early death. The patients themselves carry out the final act of taking life in cases of assisted suicide. The attending physician gets them the fatal drug, which is self-administered by the patients. 

The debate over assisted suicide

Doctors around the world are divided over PAS. The bone of contention between the doctors is the Oath of Hippocrates that they are administered upon qualifying as a medical professional. They are bound by the oath ‘to do no harm’ to their patients. The act of assisted suicide puts them in a moral dilemma. By aiding a person in taking a life, doctors argue they violate the oath and abandon their patients, whom they have sworn to protect. Doctors supporting PAS believe otherwise. These medical professionals believe that they are ridding terminally ill patients of unbearable and unnecessary misery and doing them a service by helping end their lives. 

Should PAS be made legal? 

Assisted suicide is banned or illegal in most countries. Barring a handful of countries in Europe and some states in the US and Australia, the laws in most countries deter assisted suicide and euthanasia. PAS is illegal in India. Assisted suicide and euthanasia should be allowed in exceptional cases as an extension of palliative care. Doctors should not be prosecuted for assisting in expediting the death of a patient. Instead, they should be given the discretion of choosing when it comes to cases where the patients are either comatose or show no prospect of improvement and seek to end their lives. 

Frequently Asked Questions 

1. What is assisted suicide?

Assisted suicide is a medical intervention on behalf of doctors that ends a patient’s life under their care. This procedure is also known as Physician-Assisted Suicide or PAS.

2. Is euthanasia the same as assisted suicide?

No. In assisted suicide, the patients are conscious and administer the fatal drug themselves. The physicians carry out the act of administering the life-taking drug in euthanasia. 

3. Which countries allow PAS?

Countries where PAS is allowed are Canada, Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium. States like California and Hawaii in the US approve of assisted suicide. 

4. Is assisted suicide legal in India? 

No. Any act by which human life is ended forcibly is a crime in India. Assisted suicide is illegal in India and punishable by law. 

5. Which diseases account for most PAS requests?

Assisted death has been requested for patients who have cancer, neurological diseases, organ failure and prolonged mental ailments.  

6. Why do patients seek assisted death?

Terminally ill patients seeking an assisted death have reported a loss of relevance, unbearable pain and loss of autonomy