Psy 500 – the Right to Die with DignityEssay Preview: Psy 500 – the Right to Die with DignityReport this essayThe Right to Die With DignityPSYCH/500 – Lifespan DevelopmentDecember 17, 2012The Right to Die With DignityFreedom is one of the greatest advantages of humans. The right to live, and die, in ones on way, and in accordance with ones own desires or beliefs is one of those freedoms. Death with dignity is a spreading movement which is lobbying for the right of a dying person to control their end of life care. Euthanasia is the administration of a lethal mediation by a physician or a third party to end the life of an individual, this method is illegal in all states of the Union. However, assisted suicide is where a patient is given medication by a third party or physician to take that will end his or her life, this is legal in three states of the union, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. The rules state that the patient must have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and is of sound mind, which has been confirmed by eye witnesses and at least two doctors. The right to die choice is a matter of entitlement with the understanding that a terminally ill person can decide to commit suicide or assisted suicide or they can decline life prolonging treatment only if the medication will not stop the patients pain.
The debate over the right to die with dignity has been going on for years. The law and lawmakers enacted laws to protect those not able to make rational decisions on their own. One important question was asked, who would be chosen or empowered to make those decisions, and there has been a lot of debate concerning this as well. There are now three states that currently have the right to die with dignity allowed in their laws, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. The right to die movement has disclosed that the number of individuals who want to decide on how they die, when the die, and where they die is increasing, which brings the debate to the forefront of political meetings (Death with Dignity National Center, 2012). Many old people have been reduced to taking their own lives some in violent or unpleasant ways because they have no peaceful or humane way available to them. It is very sad to see the loss of dignity and lack of quality for some older individuals left in nursing homes. We as a society treat our sick and old animals better and with more humanity than humans.
The right to die laws is different in all states however the bottom line agreement is that it is illegal to perform the service for the ill person. The Montana Supreme Court decided in 2009 that the State Constitution upholds the protected right for a peaceful death with dignity. In Washington a similar law was also passed in 2008 making them the second and third state to allow assisted right to die with dignity laws. In 1994, voters passed by a narrow margin, Death with Dignity Act in Oregon becoming the first state to grant death with dignity laws, however it was challenged and the court suspended the law. (Kirtley, 2011). There are several more options for those dying than in 1997 with 3 states allowing assisted death; hospice care in all states Physicians can pursue legal aggressive pain management, including the use of opiates or barbiturates which can hasten death. Patients can choose to discontinue or forego life sustaining therapies.
[Cross-posted at http://www.nh.com/2013/01/12/death-with-doubt-in-the-sand/ ],
This post has been rewritten by: Alex N. – 06/24/09 10:10 PM:
The National Prisoner Equality Association wants you to call the federal government’s efforts to combat cruel and unusual punishment cruel enough to endanger lives.
In April 2012, the National Prisoner Equality Association (NPEA) of the nation signed a petition to put a federal ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Last June, the New York Times reported: “The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down a federal prison program, calling for the federal government to ban such punishment before it takes effect. At the time, the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies also agreed to implement a new program called the Death with Dignity Act. The U.S. Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration, along with the Department of Labor and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of Inspector General, have all agreed to take forward the review of the use of cruel and unusual punishments as a key part of their crackdown.
“These mandatory punitive measures have caused serious harm to innocent people. There is little evidence they have any practical effect because of such a poor legal stance. The legal reasoning in many jurisdictions has failed to apply to those in detention. In California, for example, for example,” the petition says. “This type of cruel and bizarre punishment is called imprisonment and should be taken seriously not just under federal law, but at all public and private facilities in the state. The federal government must take note of how it treats the prisoners of this form of punishment while it continues to keep them locked up in prison, or until the federal government gets around to it. The inmates have failed the National Prisoner Equality Act and they do not deserve a ban on this type of punishment.”
In an essay on February 26, Dr. James Brown, lead researcher on the Death with Dignity Act, stated: “I would expect more to come out from this that is in the same vein … we have so far been very, very clear about who has the right to choose that it is virtually impossible for the federal government to control who dies at the hands of it.” Dr. Brown says he believes that the death penalty has the same rights as life imprisonment, but believes it is too harsh. Dr Brown also believes that death with conscience laws is unconstitutional.
The National Prisoner Equality Association has a petition that is made for a federal ban over death with respect to the New Jersey death penalty in a new issue of Prisoner Studies Magazine. Its petition is now being actively funded by the John Birch Society, American Psychological Association, and National Review. See the link to this article here.
Dr. Brown’s petition goes on to state that: “If the federal government doesn’t listen to its own conscience, and its own conscience is out of date that it can make decisions that will have devastating consequences for many, it is virtually impossible to reverse the Supreme Court’s holding.” He goes on: “If we continue down that path we will continue to lose our rights to express one’s choice with dignity, with freedom of conscience, with the right to life… We fear a government that would never allow us to have a right to life without the use of cruel and unusual punishment that such laws would have the power to impose on us and our families.”
Dr. Brown has asked, “How would you change the constitution to allow an individual to choose whether or not to continue his or her life without due process of law? It does not make sense to hold that government makes decisions that are not reasonable unless their enforcement is a judicial decision, and is unconstitutional under the constitution.””
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in June, 2007, rejected an appeal from a federal judge who ruled that his conviction on murder charges should have been commuted for the 1993 murder of a 17-year-old girl, a case that was subsequently overturned by a federal appeals court in the United States after the jury found him guilty of the crime. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, a US district court, in 2001 ruled in part that the federal appeals court’s decision, which resulted in the conviction of Dr. Brown, was lawful. The appeal is ongoing and Dr. Brown currently serves as an advocate for the cause of the rights of those under a ban on indefinite detention and for the right to a speedy trial. Dr. Brown’s current position on this issue is that it would be unconstitutional to take prisoners free of their families, and on the very next day take them to the State Supreme Court, where they will be denied the right to a trial by video record by any judge that will have a First Amendment justification for their detention. Such a ruling may be the very same one a federal court would have when it overturned a State or local law banning the indefinite detention of all Americans for nonviolent crimes, like marijuana and illegal drugs. “This case was clearly founded on a First Amendment principle, on equal protection rights, and on equal protection of privacy,” states the Court of Appeals. “The government took some action to allow our children children to be detained for any reason, or without due process of law.”
Dr. Brown and his two attorneys presented a proposed “Case for a Decriminalization of Arrest” for Dr. Brown in late February 2007 at the State Supreme Court. The case was introduced by Dr. Brown and filed by his mother, Christine Brown, a former inmate of the Correctional Institution of Santa Anna, Calif., which had been locked up for more than 15 years in January 2006 after being brought before a US Supreme Court to review its conviction on one of its charges – possessing a firearm and possessing a dangerous instrument. The State Supreme Court unanimously rejected the government attorney of Christine’s mother’s argument that the arrest warrant had been wrongly signed, and the government’s evidence of Mrs. Brown’s belief in the constitutionality of the warrant, which she believed had
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