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Annotated Bibliography

The Issue of Assisted Suicide

Abigail Freeman
Professor Malcolm Campbell
UWRT 1103
October 20th, 2016

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Annotated Bibliography
Humphry, Derek. Assisted Suicide. Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization.
http://www.assistedsuicide.org/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2016
This website is an informational website founded by the Euthanasia Research & Guidance
organization to educate people on assisted suicide. It includes a list of where it is legal, the
correct terminology for assisted suicide, and what assisted suicide is. This website gives you
multiple articles and videos from Derek Humphry. It also gives you links to continue your
research, such as links to Derek Humphrys books on assisted suicide. Derek Humphry is a
reporter and an author. He has a very personal connection to assisted suicide; in 1975 he helped
his wife take her own life after she had endured a long and painful battle with bone cancer. This
partially makes him biased on this topic. I feel that even though he may be biased he is a credible
source for my topic due to the numerous amounts of books on this issue he has published. ERGO
is an organization that specializes in Euthanasia and finding legal, painless ways to end the
suffering of the terminally ill. Once again, this source may be partially biased because their goal
is to see Euthanasia legalized, but I do feel they are credible. They provide funding to other
organization that look for euthanasia options, and they are a research organization globally
recognized so they have a good reputation. I plan to use this source in my paper to list where
assisted is legal and the laws about it. I also plan to use this website to help understand why
assisted suicide for the mentally ill is so controversial. Another reason this website is useful is
because it provides me with the proper terms for assisted suicide, thus Ill be able to look up each
new term to find more credible sources.
Does the author describe this organization in the article? You should add how this organization
relates to the article. Otherwise, this sounds like a great source to include in your project.

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Malpas, Phillipa J. and R. Glynn Owens. "Given That Physician-Assisted Dying Is Ethical,
Should It Be Part Of A Doctor's Role?" Mortality 21.4 (2016): 295-304. Academic
Search Complete. 10 Oct. 2016.
This academic article provides further insight into the issue of assisted suicide and how its not
just about the ethics. The article points on concerns on how assisted suicide extends the role of a
doctor and its other effects on a doctors role. The article first starts out explaining assisted
suicide, and where its legal. Then the article goes on to briefly discuss the ethical issue of
physician assisted death. Next the article begins to discuss its central topic, the role of the doctor
in assisted suicide. In this section, it firsts addresses the doctors current medical role and
obligation; also, how they deliver them. This section dissects the role of a doctor and points out
how assisting a patients death isnt really out of their job description. The article then goes into
how assisted suicide impacts other professional areas and how it cuts down their use, such as life
support machines. The authors of this article are Phillipa Malpan and R. Owens. Both of these
researchers are psychologists who study the department of psychological medicine and health
sciences. I believe this makes them a credible source because they have a background in this
issue and have done numerous amounts of research on it. Also, an academic article has to be peer
reviewed in order to be published, meaning that other scholars like them have found this article
to be credible. I will use this article in my paper to point out what people perceive the role of a
doctor to be and what it actually is. Also, Ill use this article to help point out the effects assisted
suicide has on other medical areas. This article will also be useful to help point out why people
think physician assisted death is ethically okay.

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Wilson, Jacque. Suicide Tourism To Switzerland Has Doubled Since 2009. CNN Wire 20
Aug. 2014.Web. 10 Oct. 2016.
This news article is about how tourism in Switzerland has doubled since 2009, and those that
have caused the increase are there for assisted suicide. The article states that since Switzerland
has legalized assisted suicide that their number of tourists has doubled. The article then goes
into detail about where the tourists came from, the laws about assisted suicide in those countries
they came from, and the laws about assisted suicide in Switzerland. It also describes the method
of how these people committed suicide. The article also briefly mentions how some see assisted
suicide as the wrong answer to a growing problem, end of life care. I find this source to be
credible because the author, Jacque Wilson, has no reason to be biased about the topic. Also, she
cites a study done by Institute of Legal Medicine in Zurich, a credible source. Another reason I
find the article to be credible is because it points out the biases some people may have toward the
issue of assisted suicide. This source can be useful to me because it can help depict how assisted
suicide is a growing trend. It also can help me justify how many people feel there is a need for
assisted suicide. Another reason this source is useful to me is because it gives me more
information about assisted suicide laws in other countries, and provides different perspectives on
the issue.

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Worsnop, Richard L. "Assisted Suicide Controversy." CQ Researcher 5 May 1995: 393-416.

Web. 15 Oct. 2016.
The article Assisted Suicide Controversy gives an in depth analysis of the issue of assisted
suicide, beginning with an overview of the issue and controversy. This overview includes
court cases, the controversy behind the issue, and where respected public figures (i.e. The
Vatican) stand on the issue. The article then goes to the background of assisted suicide.
This section includes things such as when the practice started, and how its developed
over the years. The background section also includes key figures in the assisted suicide
movement, those for and against it. It also mentions court cases, the states stances, and
where the issue is currently. This article also includes a chart of the pros and cons of
assisted suicide. At first, I wasnt sure if I could find this source reliable because I knew
nothing about the author. I tried to look him up and couldnt really find his credentials,
but I did find his other works. I now believe the article is reliable because not only is it a
published, peer reviewed work, but the author seems to have multiple works pertaining to
this issue and many others. Also, I was taken to this article through our schools library,
giving some merit to it. I plan to use this article to help in my introduction by giving
background knowledge on the issue. I also plan to use the information to show the
benefits of the court cases on the issue and their rulings. Another way I can use this
article is to include the pros and cons of assisted suicide into my paper. This article will
be very helpful in demonstrating why assisted suicide is such a big controversy in todays
society.
So I went through and put in some suggestions throughout the annotations and corrected some
little grammar stuff, but overall you hit on all of the components. By the end you got a

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little conversational which is understandable Im sure I did too, but I tried to give some
suggestions on different ways of wording some sentences. Also make sure you look back
at your layout because the paragraph should fall behind the hanging indent. Great job,
you pointed out great aspects of the sources that you can include in your project.