Sandra R.

Mangioni
1200 N. Curtis Road
Boise, Idaho 83706
(770) 673 6739
Dr. Kenneth R Abbey
3181 SW Sam Jackson Pard Rd.
Portland, OR 97239
(503) 494 4910

Dear Dr. Abbey,
My name is Sandra Mangioni, and I am the daughter of Giovanni Mangioni. My father,
Giovanni, has had Alzheimers disease for a long time. He has lived in a nursing home for over
seven years. My father cannot do most of the activities everyone else can do without even
thinking about. He cannot walk, talk, and needs all day for assistance. Lately the nurses and
doctors that must take care of him have, have started to force Giovanni to eat food just in order to
keep him alive. I know my father hates tubes being shoved through his stomach and that should
not be happening to him as being disabled.
I am writing you today to speak about the topic of physician assisted suicide, which is also
commonly known as euthanasia. The physician assisted suicide that should become legal and
used in the current society is for anyone in danger of health for a long period of time like a
suffering elderly and is in constant pain and misery. People in the world have many problems
and are living miserably at the moment and probably for the rest of their lives. I hope to convince
you to try and help physician assisted suicide become legal. Physician assisted suicide must
become legal because of men and womens free will, it protects against circumstances not easily
fixed with medicine, and this will protect any certain person from a slow painful death.
As a human being, every person must be granted free will, meaning they can make their own
decisions and should be allowed to do what him or her wants with their life, is ones free will.
Free will is the biggest right as a human, so how would we ever be able to take that right away?
If any elderly person is miserable and going through pain each and every day, they should be
allowed the right to choose if they should be able to end their own life. The very ill elder should
not be forced to struggle to stay alive everyday instead of have an easy wanted death.
I visit my father, at least once or twice a week even though he has no idea who I am anymore or
that I am even his daughter. I have watched my father everyday suffer and fight against the staff
that works in his nursing home, only trying to help him. Many nurses and workers from the
nursery have tried many different solutions to try but not one attempt has worked and making
physician assisted suicide legal would put a stop to all of the pain caused by the nurses. The
nursing home that my father attends, decided to try feeding him by using a nasogastric tube, a
Dobhoff. Giovanni found it extremely uncomfortable and always forcefully removed the tube
himself to try and save himself from pain. After a while, he becomes restrained and mittens are
put over his hands while he struggles against the nurses that are raising his pain. In an effort just
to keep my father alive they have surgically located a tube through his skin into his stomach, but
Giovanni proves to still be in high pain levels by still dislodging the gastrostomy tube from his
stomach.
Anyone who would want physician assisted suicide will be avoiding a slow, painful death. My
father has no reason he wants to live anymore and he sits in pain day after day in his nursing
home while slowly dying. As him being an 81 year old man, with no way of becoming healed or
healthy again, he wishes to be able to have the decision to end his own life peacefully, and
easily. Most physicians go through this many times throughout years of working with elders.
Fifty seven percent of physicians have had requests of physician assisted suicide, and if we
reviewed each case to see if the person has any chance of becoming better or not than we would
know who we could actually grant the request to. This would save a lot of money and medicine
used every day on people that it cannot heal anymore.
I am asking for you to try and make this legal as a daughter of someone and as much as it hurts
to let my father die, I cannot see him in pain every day and this is what he wants, to die
peacefully and when he wants. My father should be allowed to make his own decision and
choice on what to do with his own life. It should be legal for a physician to grant a patient with
its request on being able to pass away. With my father, Giovanni Mangioni, he should be granted
his free will by being able to make his own decisions for his life, avoids conditions not easily
fixed with medicine, and this will protect my father and any other person in a similar situation
from a slow, miserable death.
Sincerely,


Sandra Mangioni




Bibliography

The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, . N.p.. Web. 7 Dec 2013.
<http://www.uic.edu/depts/mcam/ethics/suicide.htm>.

Emanuel, L.. N.p.. Web. 9 Dec 2013.
<http://endlink.lurie.northwestern.edu/physician_assisted_suicide_debate/what.cfm>.

Joe Messerli , . N.p.. Web. 8 Dec 2013. <http://www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/code-medical-
ethics/2211b.pdf>.