Doctor-Assisted SuicideThere are thousands of people in the world who are sick and thousands of people who die every day. Why then would some of these people want to undergo physician-assisted suicide? There are several forms of physician-assisted suicide, but they all end in suicide. The definition of medically assisted suicide is: "The voluntary termination of one's life by the administration of a lethal substance with the direct or indirect assistance of a doctor" (Medical Dictionary). This assisted suicide is usually done with a lethal injection or an overdose of pills to put the patient into a coma and die from there. At the moment, the only state in America that allows doctor-assisted suicides is Oregon and even those must be considered special cases not only by the doctor but by a staff of people. Assisted suicides are morally wrong and there are other methods that can be used to ease the pain of a terminally ill patient. Terminally ill patients are people who are told they have less than six months to survive. When people are told this, they usually become scared and, due to the amount of pain they feel, they become depressed and would rather die than suffer. When a person is informed that they have a terminal illness, they go through a series of stages. The stages proceed in this order: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and finally acceptance. The third stage is depression and this is where the patient usually wants to die because they feel there is no hope and no reason to live (Keir 59). If people helped the patient get through this period, they would eventually reach the acceptance stage. Unfortunately, however, some never reach this point because they have decided that suicide is the best way out of the disease. “USA Today reported that among older adults with terminal illnesses who attempt suicide, the number suffering from depression reaches nearly 90%” (Balch). This is an extremely high percentage. If people received counseling for their depression, the number of people opting for suicide would decrease. Even if their terminal illness is not preventable, their depression is. A study of terminally ill patients concluded that patients who did not suffer from clinical depression did not have suicidal thoughts or wish their death had come sooner.