Many Malaysians still believe in a Creator and the sanctity of life given by that

Creator. As a matter of principle, a person must have the right to terminate their own
life, this is a fundamental principle of the right to life. The question here is that, is the
society of today's generation ready to accept that?
Currently, committing suicide or attempting to commit suicide is an offense in
Malaysia under Section 309 of the penal code. Physician Assisted suicide is defined
as a deliberate act, undertaken by a physician, to end the life of a person at his
request in the name of compassion. The act of ending the patients life must be
performed by the patient and not the physician. Also, the patient must willingly
request for such assistant to be taken place. Despite the best medical care, cancer
and other demoralizing diseases can rob a person of dignity and worth. To be unable
to move your limbs (and in some cases, not even able to speak), and to soil yourself
continuously with faeces and urine, are things one cannot even start to imagine. The
main objective of physician-assisted suicide is to terminate the life of a patient who
can no longer endure the suffering that they are facing. Such incidents are normally
faced by patients who suffer from critical or irreversible chronic disease. Physician-
assisted suicide is often confused with euthanasia. In cases of euthanasia the
physician administers the means of death, usually a lethal drug. In physician-
assisted suicide (PAS), it is required that the person voluntarily expresses his or her
wish to die, and makes a request for medication for the purpose of ending his or her
life. Physician-assisted suicide thus involves a persons self-administration of deadly
drugs that are supplied by a doctor. There are some criteria in order to be qualified
for Physician Assisted Suicide. Patients have to be terminally ill, which by definition
means their doctor believes they have six months or less to live. They have to be
able to take the drug themselves. They must have the mental capacity to know what
they are doing and what the consequences are. They have to make two verbal
requests, 15 days apart, and one written request with two witnesses. And two
doctorsan attending physician and a consulting physicianmust verify that the
patient meets all the criteria. There are a lot of hoops to jump through. Its not an
easy process. The rules are there to try to make sure patients arent coerced, and
that they know what they are doing. The question now is , Should patients have the
rights to die via physician assisted suicide? It is subjected to discussions as there is
no exact answers to it.

From my point of view, patients should have the rights to die via physician assisted
suicide. As the current debate unfolds, there are 2 principles on which all of
organized medicine agrees, is that, Physicians have an obligation to relieve pain and
suffering and to promote the dignity of dying patients under their care. Not only that,
the principle of patient bodily integrity requires that physicians must respect patients
competent decisions to forgo life-sustaining treatment. As said earlier, at the
moment, committing suicide are commonly known to be illegal in most of the
countries. Section 309 of the Penal Code states any individual who attempts to
commit suicide is punishable up to a year in jail, or a fine, or both if convicted.
Nevertheless, more voices are being raised up to make physician-assisted suicide
legal. Patients usually request for PAS for many different reasons that usually arise
from one or more of the following factors, such as physical and physiological
suffering, social and spiritual suffering and practical concerns. For some patients, the
request is the first expression of unrelieved suffering. A terminally-ill patient would be
facing a tough life ahead and has no motivation to live on anymore because he fails
to see the hope of recovering, whats waiting for him is an endless suffering till the
arrival of death. Besides, the patient was once an independent person but now he
has to depend on others for daily intake of food and personal hygiene. Furthermore,
this would be a pain in the eye for the family members to witness the patient
suffering from disease could not be cured forever. It will leave a deep scar in the
heart of the family members which could not be healed over time. Since withdrawal
of the life-sustaining machine is depending on the will of the patient, the patient is
similarly having the option to commit suicide in another way. Dont you think that it
would be better to have a planned suicide than pointlessly maintaining the patients
life through life-sustaining treatments knowing that nothing can be done to cure the
disease but to spend their remaining life in the hospital ward?

In my opinion, patients should not have rights to die via physician-assisted suicide
this is because when a physician assisted a person in a suicide, it is a violation of the
Hippocratic Oath. Historical ethical traditions in medicine are strongly opposed to
taking life. For instance, the Hippocratic oath states, "I will not administer poison to
anyone where asked," and I will "be of benefit, or at least do no harm." Furthermore,
some major professional groups such as the American Medical Association and the
American Geriatrics Society oppose assisted death One of the issues brought about
by critics is the Act going against the oath of physicians which include not giving
deadly medication to an individual whether the latter asks for this nor can they
suggest such to an ill person. Although certain modifications have been made to the
original Hippocratic Oath, many people still believe this should be observed. (Anon.,
2016) If the physician does not bring up the solution to end the terminally-ill patients
life at first, they would not have a thought of ending their own life in a way of indirect
suicide. Physician can be said to involve in an act of sin as they do not preserve
human life and react in opposite of it. The act of a physician putting an end to a
humans life is a very immoral from the view of humans life. Humans life is a
wondrous gift from the God, neither one should have rights to end theirs nor others
life. Instead they should have value a humans life regardless of time, money, blood
as well as tears. In this modern era, physician-assisted suicide is so encouraged just
to quickly end ones life from suffering either physically, psychologically or even
family burden. When a person had gotten a disease, the first thing they have thought
of is they are no longer living in a good piece and hence lacking the dignity to live.
Instead of choosing to continue the operation as a way of solution to their disease,
they will choose to dispose of their lives. A good doctor should give counsel on the
patient and persuade them to take the operation but not giving an option for the
patient to end their own life without trying to preserve them. Even though some
operations may not be very successful, but at least the patient had tried and take on
any opportunity left in order to sustain in life. People should have believed that
medical magical could have happen even if there is only a slightest hope left. For
patient who are terminally-ill, their family members should consider to provide them
with hospice care. Hospice care is end-of-life care. A team of health care
professionals and volunteers provides it. They give medical, psychological, and
spiritual support. The goal of the care is to help people who are dying have peace,
comfort, and dignity. The caregivers try to control pain and other symptoms so a
person can remain as alert and comfortable as possible. Hospice programs also
provide services to support a patient's family. (Anon., 2016) It is clearly obvious that
physician-assisted suicide is not the only way to face our illnesses and obstacles in
life. There are still many better solutions to these than by just ending our precious
lives in a shortcut method. According to Buddhist thoughts, assisted suicide and
euthanasia constitute deliberate killing of another person. These practices contradict
the fundamental Buddhist principle of refraining from killing a living being. Suicide is
considered an uncompassionate act as it causes grief to others and is believed to
deprive them of spiritual development. Buddhism also says that assisted suicide is
uncompassionate because death will not relieve the killed person of suffering, and is
instead thought to postpone the suffering to their next life. The perpetrator is also
believed to experience negative karma and suffering in the next life, as killing
another person, no matter the reason, is seen as a negative act. Therefore, I strongly
disagree that patients do have rights to die via physician-assisted suicide.

Conclusively, there will never be an one voice opinion on this issue as there are pros
and cons on physician assisted suicide and everyone will have different opinion as
each case and condition of patients is unique and varies from one another. It is
understandable that physician-assisted suicide do offer quite a number of
advantages to dying patients, however it can also be argued that physician-assisted
suicide might be inefficient, unethical and breaches the tradition of medicine. From
the discussions above, patients should have rights to die via physician-assisted
suicide because a patient has the autonomy to choose whether to die in a quicker
and less painful way or slower with the help of life-sustaining machine. This can
prevent the patient and family members from going through the pain of dying, it can
also reduce family burden. However, patients should not have rights to die via
physician-assisted suicide as this is a violation of the Hippocratic Oath. A physician is
meant to be a healer but not a killer who helps to ends ones life. In addition,
physician assisted suicide leads to slippery slope and patients might also be
pressured by their family to agree to end their life via physician-assisted suicide.
Referencing
Materstvedt & Kaasa (2002). "Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in
Scandinavia with a conceptual suggestion regarding international research in
relation to the phenomena". Palliative Medicine. 16: 19 via ProQuest.

Anthony Back, H. S. J. I. W. R. P., 1996. Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia

in Washington State. Patient requests and physician responses. JAMA The Journal
of the American Medical Association, pp. 275(12):919-25.

http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-community/health-care-
policy/article/physician-assisted-suicide-ethical

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_suicide

Anon., 2016. 8 Main Pros and Cons of Legalizing Physician Assisted Suicide.
[Online]
Available at: http://connectusfund.org/8-main-pros-and-cons-of-legalizing-physician-
assisted-suicide

Back AL, Starks H, Hsu C, Gordon JR, Bharucha A, Pearlman RA. Clinician-patient
interactions about requests for physician-assisted suicide: a patient and family
view. Archives of Internal Medicine. 2002; 162(11): 1257-1265.