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Right to Die Canada

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The Right to Die

There has been much debate in Canada about whether or not we should have physician assisted suicide. I believe that a person has the right to die with dignity if they are in severe pain and have no hope of recovering. As long as a person is mentally intact, they should be able to make their own decision. But if the person is on life support and there is no brain activity and little or no hope; their family should make the decision. The doctor should consult but does not and should never make the decision. Therefore the doctors will not be called ‘murders’ or ‘inhumane’. When a person is terminally ill, and they're going to die, why make them suffer any longer. With assisted suicide the patient would be able to be surrounded by loved ones and go out the way they want to, not the way they are forced to. I believe a person should be able to choose whether or not they want to continue through the pain or come to terms with the fact they'll die and be ready for it. Why would an animal that is sick and dying get a needle and feel no more pain. But a human who is sick and dying has to die a painful death; suffering from their sickness. The law already permits patients to withhold or withdraw medical treatment even if that increases the chances that the patient will die. I fail to see much difference between physicians not giving patients medicine and physicians assisting suicide. There are various opinions regarding this debate. Most are based on religious beliefs. It is a dispute of who should have more power; the government and its laws, religious beliefs, or the individual that is the centre of the dispute. And from my understanding of the topic the individual should make their own decision. No one but the patient with the fatal outcome should make the decision, not the government and not the physicians. Offering someone with a terminal disease the ability to die with dignity is kind, it is humane and compassionate. And, it is everyone's right as a human being to decide when and how we want to die.

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