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Argument: Trained physicians are qualified to aid patients in decision to die

Support

Margaret Battin, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine, Division of Medical Ethics, University of Utah. “Is a Physician Ever Obligated to Help a Patient Die?,” Regulating How We Die. 1998 – “Suicide assisted by a humane physician spares the patient the pain and suffering that may be part of the dying process, and grants the patient a ‘mercifully’ easy death…

The most plausible party for providing such assistance [in death] is the physician. It is the physician who has access to drugs, who has specialized knowledge of appropriate dosages, and who knows how to prevent side effects such as nausea and vomiting. Equally important, the physician can be a source of emotional support for both patient and family. Seen in this light, the right to assistance in suicide is plausibly construed as the dying patient’s right to help from his or her own physician, at least where there is a personal physician who knows the patient well, who has been directly, extensively, and intimately connected with and responsible for that person’s care, who may know the family, and who understands, better than any other physician or other party able to provide assistance in suicide, that person’s hopes, fears, and wishes about how to die.”