Assisted Suicide: Rights and Responsibilities A woman with cancer became the first known person to die under the physician-assisted suicide law in the state of Oregon when she took a lethal dose of drugs in March 1998. Oregon's Death with Dignity Act passed a referendum in November 1997 and has since been the only U.S. law to legalize assisted suicide. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, more than 4,000 doctors have endorsed the assisted suicide law (cited in "The Anguish of Doctors," 1996). The law allows terminally ill patients who have been given six months or less to live and survive. they wish to hasten their death to obtain the drugs prescribed by two doctors. The most important thing to note is that this law does not include those who have been placed on life support nor does it include those who have not voluntarily asked doctors to help them commit hospitalization. suicide. The issue of physician-assisted suicide has been the subject of heated controversy in recent years. Many people fear that legalizing physician-assisted suicide is irrational and violates medicine's life-saving tradition. However, physician-assisted suicide should be legalized because it offers terminally ill patients the opportunity for a peaceful death and recognizes the inadequacy of current medical practice for dealing with death. It has been argued that the reason why some terminally ill patients wish to commit suicide is nothing more than melancholy. Patients suffering from terminal illnesses may tend to be negative, hopeless and depressed. In “When Patients Seek Help with Suicide,” Maskin, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, argues that in many cases, dyi… middle of paper… end of life. Therefore, medically assisted suicide should be legalized to meet the needs of terminally ill patients and to compensate for the insufficiency of current medical practice. In conclusion, the crux of the physician-assisted suicide law is “Who would it protect?” It is clear that the best effect of the physician-assisted suicide law is its ability to provide some benefits to all dying patients. Therefore, although it has been argued that legalizing physician-assisted suicide is harmful to terminally ill patients, counterproductive, and violates the tradition of medicine, it is suggested that physician-assisted suicide be legalized as this law will greatly improve the current medical environment for patients dying. It is hoped that offering the informed choice of legalized assisted suicide can make the lives of terminally ill patients more meaningful.