Physician-assisted suicide.
John Arras opposed the PAS idea citing that these practices are being abused and have threatened the social life when it was legalized. In his arguments, he failed to justify the bon for active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. He opposed the legalization of the PAS feeling that this practice will be abused, and he provides facts that had a specific context on how these arguments based on the abuse will be discerned. He led a group of critics that opposed the practice citing that such killings are immoral and about the harmful effects that this practice will bring in the matter of social policy. In this paper, I agree with him that he was right against this practice, and this paper will support my view with facts drawn from John Arras’s statements.
On the abuse of the practice, some people will deliberately seek the practice and that there will those who will be judged incompetently to be killed based on objective and subjective tests that are used to justify the withholding treatment from the incompetents. Arras stated that it was not obvious to predict the shifts since they are unjust and immoral, and if they base only on the predictions, then it will pose more significant risks to the vulnerable patients. Therefore there is a need to set aside those incompetent patients to consider such factors to reduce the additional risks.
Arras’s views take several forms and that the PAS being abused the patients that fall outside the ambit from the justifiable criteria that we make will be the candidates of death soon. He feels that the physicians will accept the patient’s request, especially now that patients receive medicines one at a time. These decisions may some time too come from the members of the family who, like the physicians, are the promoters of the PAS. He also thinks that there are those elderly patients and the depressed patients who request the PAS, while with the treatment, they could have successfully be treated. The diagnosis of depression has moved slowly in the progression of its treatment. With the legalization, Arras feels that this will bear the brunt of the social coats with the discrimination of the minorities and the poor. The social injustices will be felts by some people due to this legalization and in totally agree with Arras on these suppositions.
Since we expect that the practices of PAS will be abused, Arras says that society will be excellent if we list the ban against the practices since it will be borne among the society members. There have been discussions about euthanasia between the society and the individuals that there will be socials risks, and individuals benefit from the [proposed legalization of the PAS practices. He stated that it is better judgmental on the issue from state legislatures than the federal judges on this issue to come up with balanced social risks and personal benefits.
I am sympathetic about the issue, and I considered the arguments of Arras as making sense on the banning of the active euthanasia and the physician-assisted suicide he portrayed a broader understanding about the legalization of the PAS practices as it will affect the social cost, the poor, the elderly and the depressed negatively. He said that there would be a misuse of this legalization, and we need to consider the ban of both AE and the PAS.