单选题 One reason people believe physician-assisted suicide should be available for those who request it, is that people fear the loss of their autonomy. One source stated that more patients fear loss of control than they do actually suffer from a terminal illness. The Oregon Health Department said that "The fact that 79% of persons who chose physician-assisted suicide did not wait until they were bedridden to take their lethal medication provides further evidence that controlling the manner and time of death were important issues to these patients."
Another reason for people to be in favor of physician-assisted suicide is some fear becoming a burden to their family or friends, and this makes people more susceptible to choosing assisted suicide, rather than letting a family member take care of them. Terminally ill patients feel guilty about having to have another person take care of them, instead of being able to take care of themselves and do things for themselves. "75% of those who asked for assistance in suicide fear burdening spouses and families." In the cases of Dr. Kevorkian, most of the female patients were more worried about becoming a burden to friends and family, while the males were more likely to commit suicide due to the suffering. Another issue is for the family to keep the patient alive, even if they are in a state of vegetation, because they fear living with the guilt of killing a member of their own family. The family members felt that if they did help in the assistance of the suicide, that they were abandoning the patient rather than helping with their final wishes, even in the cases of the patient only wanting the family to put them out of their misery.
Most people that believe physician-assisted suicide should become a legal option for anyone who requests it, use the idea that everyone has the freedom of choice. In the book, Lawful Exit : The Limits of Freedom, Derek Humphry quotes Archibald MacLeish by saying, "Freedom is the right to choose the right to create for yourself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice and the exercise of choice, a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing. " Another source states that, "Since there is no absolute legal, medical, or moral answer to the question of what constitutes a good or correct death in the face of a terminal illness, the power to make the decision about how someone dies can rest with only one individual—the person living in that particular body". There are many arguments in favor of assisted suicide, and the reality argument simply states that, people are already being helped into death, so why not just continue with it. Some people have even come as far as believing that since the democratic view is free of religion, suicide should be viewed as a pro, because those who see it as a negative issue, are seen as imposing their moral beliefs on everyone else.
The patient's Right to Self-determination gives the patient the power to decide not only when they die, but also how, because it is in fact their body, their pain, and their life, so what's the point in keeping someone alive if they don't see any reason themselves. In a newspaper article one source states, "Proponents of assisted suicide always insist that the practice will be carefully limited. It will be available, they claim, only for those who request it and only for those who are dying, anyway". People do have a constitutional right to commit suicide, if they are impaired with a terminal illness that cannot be cured and they are unlikely to improve, as mentioned earlier in the paper.
Another big issue that comes up in the discussion of assisted suicide, is people wanting to die with dignity. Dr. Christian Barnard states, "With an open-door approach to technical progress, with the emergence of candor in discussions of death-related subjects, with landmark changes in ethical and legal constraints to medical practice, I feel that society is ready to take a giant step toward a better understanding of the dignity of death and the attainment of that dignity, if necessary, through euthanasia and suicide." Some people have even gone as far as believing that euthanasia is the only merciful thing to do when patients are suffering and cannot be helped. People also believe that since sending criminals to prison is viewed as a positive idea, it should be acceptable to help those with terminal illnesses end their lives when they have done nothing wrong, but only want to help themselves.

单选题 The passage centers primarily on the controversy ______.
A. as to whether medically assisted suicide should be allowed to continue even though it is strictly illegal in the U.S
B. between the expression of a personal choice and a moral obligation
C. over the possible adverse effect of self-determination
D. about the idiosyncratic particularity of suicide

单选题 Most of the evidentiary material presented by the author is based on ______.
A. evidence provided by the U.S. Department of Health
B. the result of extensive field work
C. evidence from the writer's collaborative research with the U.S. Department of Health
D. the results of corroborated testimony

单选题 For the author, medically-assisted suicide should be regarded principally as a ______.
A. personal dilemma B. ethical problem
C. legal issue D. All of the above

单选题 The tone of the passage is mostly ______.
A. neutral
B. unsympathetic towards physician-assisted suicide
C. sympathetic towards physician-assisted suicide but occasionally neutral
D. sympathetic towards physician-assisted suicide

单选题 How many ideas in favor of physician-assisted suicide are recorded in the passage?
A. 7 B. 5 C. 6 D. 8