Physician Assisted Suicide

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In today's society, one of the most controversial issues is physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Many people feel that it is wrong for people, regardless of their health condition, to ask their health care provider to end their life; while others feel it is their right to be able to choose how and when they die. When a physician is asked to help a patient into death, they have many responsibilities that come along with that single question. Among those responsibilities are: providing valid information as to the terminal illness the patient is suffering, educating the patient as to what their final options may be, making the decision of whether or not to help the patient into death, and also if they do decide to help, …show more content…

Worsnop also reports that the autopsy preformed on Wantz showed no evidence of any pelvic disorder that she could have been suffering from. After hearing this information, the State Board of Medicine suspended Kevorkian's medical license on November 20, 1991 (Worsnop "Assisted Suicide Controversy" 405). Although Kevorkian's medical license was suspended, he still continued to assist his patients into death. In November 1992, he helped his sixth patient, a female, into death. After this death, the Michigan House of Representatives passed a bill making assisted suicide a felony, making it punishable by four years in a state prison (Gay 47). After the deaths of Wantz and Miller, many people in Michigan, and all over the world, became angered that nothing was done to stop Kevorkian. The State of Michigan eventually put a ban on assisted suicide. Kevorkian, for his part, announced March 6 that he planned to appeal Michigan's ban on assisted suicide to the U.S. Supreme Court. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), representing two cancer patients, had filed a separate appeal of the ban to the Supreme Court a week earlier. On April 24, the Supreme Court rejected both appeals without comment, clearing the way for Kevorkian to stand trial on murder charges in the Wantz-Miller case. (Worsnop "Assisted Suicide Controversy" 410)
According to Richard L. Worsnop, Kevorkian was later put into jail,

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