Assisted suicide is a tough decision, but one that every citizen in the United States should have readily available.

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There are many mental health resources available to people, but certain illnesses and circumstances may simply be too much for people to overcome. Mental health professionals should do everything in their power to provide resources to people so they do not need to come to this decision to begin with. But people at the end of their lives, or living with chronic and painful conditions may decide that living on is too much to deal with.

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Like many issues: assisted suicide should be a civil liberty that anyone has access to. Unfortunately, it is only legal in seven states (including District of Columbia), with one requiring a court ruling. Every other state has a ban on assisted suicide. There should not be such harsh governmental control on such a personal decision. People without access to assisted suicide may attempt suicide (and likely fail), making their situation worse for themselves and those around them. Assisted suicide is the only form of humane suicide, it is a planned procedure and allows everyone around the person to prepare themselves mentally. It requires a prescription from a licensed physician, so there are requirements and thought that goes through a professional.

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According to the American Psychological Association, alternative resolutions such as vigorous clinical interventions may reduce the likelihood that a person would request assisted suicide. Through more mental health funding and support, we can hopefully get to a state where few people want to go through assisted suicide. But this is reality, and mental health is often ignored and still undervalued. So until we get to a perfect reality, assisted suicide should be readily available.

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And this is merely talking about the psychological aspects. What about people with chronic illnesses that cause them to be in eternal pain until they die? What kind of life is it to lead to be in extreme pain all the time? Sure, these cases are extremely rare in general. But it is a valid and important reason as much as extreme mental health cases are. Even less rare cases exist, such as people that are mostly or completely paralyzed. Having to be wheeled around and taken care of all day without having free will may be enough for a person to not want to live.

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Some argue that assisted suicide is far too expensive to support. However, this is not the case at all.

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According to euthanasia.procon.org, the medication generally used for assisted suicide costs merely $75 to $100. This is far cheaper than any life-long medications and end of life support systems that we have at medical facilities. At such a cheap cost, there really is no argument for assisted suicide being too expensive. Our government misspends our budgets in very heinous ways already. The cost of assisted suicide medication is a negligible dent with an important benefit.

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Some argue that people will abuse a law that legalized assisted suicide, and many people would start using this service. Suddenly thousands of people would die that normally would not have.

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However, Oregon’s assisted suicide law has been in place for over 20 years and this is not the case at all.

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According to oregon.gov’s statistical analyses on assisted suicide rates, around 1127 people in total have died due to assisted suicide since 1998. This is an extremely small amount of people for such a long span of time. A mass amount of people will never want to resort to assisted suicide, believing so is illogical and insensitive. It is in reality used for an extremely small amount of people under unfortunate circumstances.

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Americans always argue for allowing people to live the way they want to. Now we should start thinking about allowing people to die the way they want to.