1772392 Physician assisted suicide is a hotly debated topic in modern American society. For some, engaging in physician assisted suicide is one of the most profound ways in which a person can exercise their autonomy. California, Oregon, and Washington have passed legislation that legalizes physician suicide, since the majority in these states subscribes to this line of reasoning. However, many others believe that if you choose to use physician assisted suicide, the act itself destroys the person’s agency and autonomous choice. One such proponent is John P. Safranek, and he outlines his reasoning in his article titled Autonomy and Assisted Suicide The Execution of Freedom. In this paper, I will summarize the argument that John…show more content… However, he fails to see how a person is exercising their ascribed autonomy when engaging in physician assisted suicide. He believes that once a person has gone through physician assisted suicide, their agency and autonomy are destroyed in the act, but in reality, the opposite of agency destruction is the truth. Every person has the intrinsic right to make decisions for themselves, or as Dworkin puts it, “Each individual has a right to make the "most intimate and personal choices central to personal dignity and autonomy." That right encompasses the right to exercise some control over the time and manner of one's death.” (Dworkin, 47). The Supreme Court has also weighed in on this argument, saying that the decisions that a person makes with their autonomy and dignity in mind is fundamental in reference to the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that the government shall not infringe upon a person’s liberty (Dworkin, 43). Of course, legality does not necessarily imply that morally right follows, but in this case, it does because physician assisted suicide shows respect for a person’s dignity and autonomy in the medical setting by respecting the patient’s final wishes to die with…show more content… According to Kant, killing oneself means that the person has failed to respect their own autonomy, and that such an act is unsound (McMillan, 444). Kant would say that when a person participates in physician assisted suicide, “he destroys himself in order to escape from a trying condition, he makes use of a person merely as a means to maintain a tolerable condition up to the end of life.” (McMillan, 444). However, if a person was reasonably free from external constraints and had the capacity within themselves to make a rational decision, then they are considered autonomous (Tate, 6/20). Since we ought to respect an individual’s autonomy, we must acknowledge that the individual has the right to act in an autonomous fashion. Furthermore, we ought to act in such a way that we promote and respect the individual’s right to exercise autonomous choice, and we ought not restrict a range of options that a person has (Tate, 6/20). According to Szaz, “the right to kill oneself is the supreme symbol of personal autonomy” (McMillan, 444). Thus, a person taking their own lives, such as the case of physician assisted suicide is acting
