PAPER Topics

... of the increasing number of suicides in Michigan, Gov. Engler signed an anti-suicide law in late February that made doctor-assisted suicides a felony. During the 21-month trial period of the new law anyone assisting in a suicide can be sentenced to up to four years in prison and fined more than $2,000 (Reuters, 1993). With the passing of this law I thought that most people would be against the right-to-die, not so. In a poll cited in a 1991 issue of USA Today eighty percent of Americans think sometimes there are circumstances when a patient should be allowed to die, compared to only fifteen percent think doctors and nurses should always do everything possible to save a person's life. ...

... These filoviruses cause hemorrhagic fever, which is actually what kill victims of the Ebola virus. Hemorrhagic fever as defined in Mosby's Medical, Nursing, and Allied Health Dictionary as, a group of viral aerosol infections, characterized by fever, chills, headache, malaise, and respiratory or GI symptoms, followed by capillary hemorrhages, and, in severe infection, oliguria, kidney failure, hypotension, and, possibly, death. The incubation period for Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever ranges from 2-21 days (JAMA 273: 1748). The blood fails to clot and patients may bleed from injections sites and into the gastrointestinal tract, skin and internal organs (Ebola Info. from the CDC 2). The Ebola ...

... people intentionally starve themselves. It usually starts around the time of puberty and involves extreme weight loss. Sometimes they must be hospitalized to prevent starvation because food and weight become obsessions. For some, the compulsiveness shows up in strange eating rituals, some even collect recipes and prepare gourmet feasts for family and friends. Loss of monthly menstrual periods is typical in women with this disorder and men with this disorder usually become impotent. People with bulmia nervosa consume large amounts of food and then rid their bodies of the excess calories by vomiting, abusing laxatives or excersising obsessively. Some use a combination of all these forms ...

... younger than 15 jumped 18 percent. The rate among minority teens climbed from 186 per 1,000 to 189 per 1,000. The most popular procedure involved in s is the vacuum aspiration which is done during the first trimester (three months or less since the women has become pregnant). A tube is simply inserted through the cervix and the contents of the uterus are vacuumed out. The most commonly used type of second trimester is called dilation and evacuation. Since the fetus has bones, bulk and can move, second trimester is not as simple. When as much of the fetus and placenta are vacuumed out then tweezers are used to remove larger parts. After this, or the beginning of the fifth month is serio ...

... die if they choose to. The only problem is that some states have decided to not allow physician assisted suicide. For example, people like Dr. Kevorkian has been under much scrutiny for assisting in deaths. I don’t necessarily agree with his bedside manor and his “icy okey-doke” (Goodman, 495) But when somebody decides to take his own life, it is up to the individual to do so. Another problem is the moral issue. Is assisted suicide moral or immoral? If a person is terminally ill and is going to die from the illness, then the only thing to do is to take his or her own life to end suffering. Take for example, if somebody has Alzheimer’s disease, or Parkinson’s disease, that person will eventu ...

... death is one situation which merits euthanasia. It is also one of the more common cases where euthanasia is requested. Brain death is when all brain activities cease. The lines are fairly well drawn in the law about patients who are suffering but are still compotent, but when the law is asked to determine the fate of a lingering, comatose, incompotent patient the lines begin to blur. In many cases the courts turned to the patient's family, but what if there are not any or they disagree? In such cases who decides? In a controversial decision a Massachusetts court allowed that it would invoke its own "substitute judgement" on behalf of a mentally ill woman. In a second case mentioned in ...

... of the country, this is changing rapidly. There currently is neither a cure, nor even an effective treatment, and no vaccine either. But there are things that have been PROVEN immensely effective in slowing the spread of this hideously lethal disease. AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Defficiency Disease. It is caused by a virus. The disease originated somewhere in Africa about 20 years ago. There it first appeared as a mysterious ailment afflicting primarily heterosexuals of both sexes. It probably was spread especially fast by primarily female prostitutes there. AIDS has already become a crisis of STAGGERING proportions in parts of Africa. In Zaire, it is estimated that ov ...

... we continue to accept the merciless killings and suicides of the helpless but powerful, the light will soon burn out. There will be no energy in the world. and doctor-assisted suicide should not be accepted or allowed by the government and people of the United States. Statistics show that seventy-three percent of the U.S. population approved of some form of . This is used constantly in debates to pass laws for making legal. But the people are deceived by this number. When the poll was taken, the people were asked if they approved of "some form" of . There are two forms of , active and passive. It is the passive that many people are accepting, the less harsh of the two. That's why people ...

... violence at a time of the killer's rather than nature's choosing. Unlike murder, euthanasia is not an act of violence. In an editorial in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dr. Eric Chevlen argues that patients, who are worn down by pain, extensive testing, and depression, will be easily persuaded to seek assisted suicide (11B). Furthermore, Chevlen mentions that the courts have decided that the right to die should be made available to everyone (11B). Modern medical technology has allowed doctors to prolong life past the point of a patient's natural death. In the case of euthanasia, the doctor needs to end suffering from cancer or AIDS and assist the patient to die comfortably. Patients ar ...

... and Dying,92). The most recent case is that of The State of Florida v. Charles Hall. “Charles Hall is dying of AIDS and challenged the State of Florida to let him die by a self-administered lethal injection without fear of prosecution”(http://www.rights.org/ deathnet/open.html). On January 31, 1997, a Judge ruled that Charles Hall could take his own life with the aid of a doctor. Senior Judge S. Joseph Davis, brought in from Seminole County, “found that Florida's strict privacy law and the equal protection clause in the U.S. Constitution entitled Hall, 35, and Dr. McIver to carry out an assisted death without fear of prosecution” (Sun- Sentinel, 1A). On February 11, 1997, Charles ...