Free Euthanasia Essays: Hospice and Physician-Assisted Suicide :: Euthanasia Physician Assisted Suicide

Hospice and Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia   One Work Cited      This endeavor will present the views of that worldwide organization named Hospice which has seen the quiet, natural death of millions of terminally ill patients - without the use of physician-assisted suicide. It is important that the voice of the largest caregiver for the terminally ill be heard, and listened to attentively. For they pull in the most experience. The Hemlock Society is nonhing (in scope, importance, goals)in comparison to this great Hospice Organization (HO).   Hospice professionals and caregivers have given the issue of physician-assisted suicide much thought and status in recent years, and adopted an organizational position on the issue as early as February of 1992. Last year, when the debate increased in intensity, the HO not only reaffirmed its earlier position, but strengthened it. The Organizations Resolution clearly states, That assisted suicide is not a component of hospice care ... and That the Hospice Organization does not support the legalization of voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide in the care of the terminally ill.    Hospice workers, likely more than any other stem of care providers, deal with the desperation that many individuals feel when they accept the fact that their illness is likely to be the cause of their death. In that process, hospice staff deal not only with the physical pain of the illness, but also the emotional pain of facing leaving ones family, the social pain of enduring what may be considered indignities, and the sacred pain associated with ones cultural and personal beliefs about life after death. Through an interdisciplinary approach that is unique to hospice care, patients who elect hospice receive treatment for all their concerns. Hospice caregivers have discovered three central reasons a terminally ill person may want to discuss suicide.   One is a fear of uncontrolled pain. some other is fe ar of abandonment, of being left alone to die and feeling there is no one to care. The third is concern over financial pressures that may issue a family devastated by the last illness. Hospice addresses these concerns as quickly in the disease process as is possible, and hospice workers everywhere will tell the public that when these issues are downstairs control, the desire to end ones life becomes a non-issue. Hospice workers dedicate their professional and often their personal lives to successfully resolving those issues. The hospice community is very concerned that the legalization of