In 2014, having been recently married, twenty-nine year old Brittany Maynard and her husband Dan Diaz were excited to begin trying for a family (Maynard, 2014, para. 1-2 ). However, their excitement quickly came crashing down when Brittany visited her doctor in search of the cause for her terrible and constant headaches. The diagnosis; terminal brain cancer (Maynard, 2014, para 1). Within days, Brittany underwent several surgeries in efforts to remove the tumor, but it was to no avail. Given a prognosis of six months to live, Brittany and her family came to a difficult decision “There is no treatment that would save my life, and the recommended treatments would have destroyed the time I had left (Maynard, 2014, para. 5).” So they uprooted
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However, it is still an issue that remains widely debated on the principles and ethics behind it. In an article for Lone Star College titled The Right to Assisted Suicide Esther B. De La Torre makes a strong argument in support of this right by describing the pain and suffering terminally ill patients typically undergo. Medicine in typical cases is used in the hopes of curing a patient of alleviating their suffering. However, in the case of the terminally ill it can do neither of these things. Instead, medicine prolongs their suffering day after day, and in more cases than not they spend their final days, not in the comfort of their own home, but in a hospital bed. “Denial of death at some point becomes an illusion (Torre, …show more content…
There are many programs put into place, some by the federal government, aimed at relieving the financial struggles of those going through this process, but there are still many expenses left unpaid and more often than not these bills fall on the family. It is estimated that it cost approximately $10,000 a month (Torre, 2002, para. 3), and it can cost an astounding $10,000 a day for someone who is in an intensive care unit (Court, 2009, Pg. 1). There, are also situations like that of Brittany Maynard where, since the state they live in has not legalized death with dignity, they are forced to upheave their lives and move to a different state, an expensive process, and not one that everyone can do. On top of medical bills, there is also funeral cost to consider (The Brittany, 2015, para. 2-4). For those patients who are terminally ill and who have accepted their circumstances, they are able to prevent their families from falling into financial debt but only if they have a legalized means to it, and, unfortunately, as it is currently many patients do not since so few states have passed laws allowing them this
However, it is still an issue that remains widely debated on the principles and ethics behind it. In an article for Lone Star College titled The Right to Assisted Suicide Esther B. De La Torre makes a strong argument in support of this right by describing the pain and suffering terminally ill patients typically undergo. Medicine in typical cases is used in the hopes of curing a patient of alleviating their suffering. However, in the case of the terminally ill it can do neither of these things. Instead, medicine prolongs their suffering day after day, and in more cases than not they spend their final days, not in the comfort of their own home, but in a hospital bed. “Denial of death at some point becomes an illusion (Torre, …show more content…
There are many programs put into place, some by the federal government, aimed at relieving the financial struggles of those going through this process, but there are still many expenses left unpaid and more often than not these bills fall on the family. It is estimated that it cost approximately $10,000 a month (Torre, 2002, para. 3), and it can cost an astounding $10,000 a day for someone who is in an intensive care unit (Court, 2009, Pg. 1). There, are also situations like that of Brittany Maynard where, since the state they live in has not legalized death with dignity, they are forced to upheave their lives and move to a different state, an expensive process, and not one that everyone can do. On top of medical bills, there is also funeral cost to consider (The Brittany, 2015, para. 2-4). For those patients who are terminally ill and who have accepted their circumstances, they are able to prevent their families from falling into financial debt but only if they have a legalized means to it, and, unfortunately, as it is currently many patients do not since so few states have passed laws allowing them this