Many people do support physician assisted suicide as an end-of-life option, and rightfully so. It is hard to imagine that anyone would want to take away a person’s right to end suffering, especially when that suffering is long, slow, and painful. As stated previously, pain is not always the reason that patients seek physician assisted suicide, but it most definitely can be. Let’s look at those patients with illnesses that do in fact cause unmanageable and unbearable pain and suffering. People don’t believe that they or others should have to live a life suffering each day because of pain. This is a seemingly reasonable argument in support of physician-assisted suicide. But what about diseases that aren’t terminal, but that cause a lifetime of daily pain and suffering? What about those who have been diagnosed with mental disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia? Although it is not physical pain, these illnesses cause emotional pain that is just as real and felt just as strongly as physical pain. It is said that in the brain, physical and emotional pain share much of the same circuitry. It is a commonly-known fact that these disorders are contributing factors towards many of the suicide cases in the United States each year. What is interesting though, is that someone who is diagnosed with depression, who will suffer from it for the rest of their life, cannot request physician assisted suicide as an end of life option because depression is not terminal. Someone who experiences pain that will last no longer than six months can request to die before their time, but those who have pain that will last the rest of their life cannot request the same treatment. Another strange contradiction in this case is that those who pursue the route of physician assisted suicide want to be recognized as someone who has “died with dignity” because they did not let their illness overtake them. It would make sense that someone who doesn’t let depression take over their life would be recognized in the same manner, however, that is not the case whatsoever. Those who commit suicide due to mental and emotional pain are often times considered cowards who “took the easy way out.” They are selfish for leaving their families behind and for only thinking of their own pain. This is a double standard that works in favor of those with physical illnesses and shames those with mental and emotional ones.
Another reason that many people are in support of the legalization of physician assisted suicide is because it will help lower health care costs. If someone is terminally ill, but has six more months to live, that is six more months of hospital bills that are going to pile up on the family that they leave behind. Some people wonder why it is necessary to pay outrageous prices for medications, hospital stays, or procedures that aren’t going to change the fact that their loved one is dying. Physician assisted suicide allows the patient to end their suffering without the guilt of becoming a financial burden to their families. The problem with this logic, however, is that because of this guilt, patients may become more likely to pursue physician assisted suicide rather than fighting their disease. Felicia Cohn, PhD, Associate Professor at the School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine, and Joanne Lynn, MD, MA, MS, Director of The Washington Home Center for Palliative Care Studies, Washington, DC, wrote in their chapter "Vulnerable People: Practical Rejoinders to Claims in Favor of Assisted Suicide" that for the economically disadvantaged, as well as those without health insurance, “…physician-assisted suicide may not merely be a choice, one option among others; rather, it may become a coercive offer. If physician-assisted suicide becomes a more popular choice, ending one's own life could come to be perceived as an obligation, that is, a societally endorsed course of action that is the only way to avoid suffering, indignity, and impoverishment." Legalizing physician assisted suicide would ultimately endanger those of low socio-economic status because of the guilt they would have of becoming a financial burden to their families, thus making physician assisted suicide seem like the only option they have.
