Imagine that you are terminally ill with stage IV brain cancer, and the doctors tell you that you have six months left to live. Imagine having to suffer and go through unnecessary extensive procedures knowing none of them can heal you. Imagine that you cannot be cured, all you can do is pray each day that it will be your last because the pain is unbearable. Imagine how your family feels, waiting and watching you die. Imagine wishing you could just end the pain and make the dignified decision to end your life in peace. You know that if it was up to you, you would choose that. However, unless you are a resident of Oregon, Montana, Vermont, Washington or New Mexico, your fate is not up to you. Euthanasia is physician-assisted suicide where an authorized doctor makes the deliberate action of ending a life for a competent, fatally ill patient to relieve suffering (Eckholm). There are three main reasons why it should be legal nationwide; it benefits the patient’s comfort, eliminates stress for the family, and has financial benefits.

Unless you live in one of the five states I mentioned above, you'll either have to move to receive this treatment, or deal with the suffering and discomfort that comes with the terminal illness.  Much like Brittany Maynard, a 29 year old stage IV glioblastoma multiforme patient, that moved from her home town of Anaheim, California to Portland, Oregon to be able to avail herself with the state’s “Death with Dignity” laws. Brittany and her family were forced to move away from their hometown and spend the money to buy a house for their daughter to spend her final days in (Schoichet). The family could have avoided this move into a new uncomfortable area, if only people everywhere had the right to die with dignity.  Having an incurable illness is unbearable enough for the patient, having to move just to die peacefully is an overburden.  Similarly, Robert Mitton from Denver with a failing aortic valve stated, “I am facing my imminent death,” and asked why people in Montana and New Mexico, “are able to die with dignity and I am not. This should be a basic human right” (Eckholm). Patients should not have to move out of their hometown just to take advantage of laws that should be available to all US citizens.
How would you feel if you witnessed one of your family member’s in pain each day and there was nothing you could do to take them out of their misery? Families of terminally ill patients have it rough to start, but not knowing when their loved one will depart and seeing them suffer each day adds on to the emotional stress. Family members work hard to try to ensure that their relative’s final days are pleasant, however it is unsettling because they don’t know which day will be the last. The official end-of-life period when body systems are shutting down can last anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks and is a slow, painful process (Wayne). Not only are lethal illnesses painful for the patient’s themselves, but the emotional toll it takes on a family can be devastating. Family members can feel helpless and useless, but if physician-assisted suicide is legal nationwide they would be able to become involved. You wouldn’t sit back and let your dog suffer, so why should you let your family member suffer?

In 2009 Medicare paid $55 billion in the last two months of terminal patients’ lives in the United States. When they looked back at the expenses, 20-30% had no meaningful impact (Meyer). This astronomical cost could have easily been reduced if some of these patients had the choice to die with dignity and choose doctor assisted suicide. A common misconception is that physician assisted suicide is expensive, but there are two kinds of barbiturates the patient can take. For a 10 gram dose of Seconal which comes in tablets that are broken apart to produce a powder, it is $125. For a dose of Nembutal, which is in a more convenient liquid form, it is about $1000 (Engber). When you compare the cost of euthanasia with the cost of getting substantial unneeded procedures, it is more cost-efficient. Additionally, it does not make sense to unnecessarily prolong the process of dying while there are others who aren’t terminal who could be using the medical attention and care to be cured.
Although some may be against the process of assisted suicide because they feel it is an “unnatural death,” the many benefits outweigh the few detriments when looked at in retrospect. The New York Catholic Conference strongly opposes it saying that it crushes hope, whereas I believe it is the complete opposite (Eckholm). I think that the whole point is for the patient to feel they have control over their own body and sickness and to not be hopeless. It should be a personal choice to die with dignity and a right all American citizens can obtain. We Americans say we live in the land of the free, but how free are we if each state does not give terminal citizen’s the choice to die with dignity. It should be a personal decision to end the agony and to be able take control before you have no control left.