The issue of physician-assisted suicide has been around for quite some time. There have been numerous lawsuits over this to legalize it, but all of them have been struck down by the Supreme Court. What seemed like a lost cause in the past now becomes a real possibility as America moves forward into the 21st century. As citizens increase their support for PAS, many states are beginning to draft bills to legalize this cause, with strict restrictions and regulation of course. In 1997, Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Soon after, three other states (Washington, Vermont, and Montana) followed Oregon's lead, while two more states moved closer to legalizing the procedure. Despite this, many people are still opposed to PAS and are constantly fighting for it to become legal. With the growing popularity of this issue, the debate over the right to end one's life and the morality of this issue are why the UTA community should care about this topic and why it is worth exploring all three positions regarding PAS. . In this article, I will discuss the three main positions in this debate: that physician-assisted suicide should be illegal, that physician-assisted suicide should be limited to terminally ill patients, and that physician-assisted suicide should be accessible to all. The debate over physician-assisted suicide is that it should not be legalized. Many advocates cite the issue of pain to justify this position. They believe that the magnitude of suffering endured by a terminally ill patient deceives their minds. They also linked this distress to clinical depression, the root that they believe causes them to want... middle of paper ... restriction is necessary and should be limited to only terminally ill patients to prevent abuse . With the growing debate over the legality of physician-assisted suicide in the United States, it is important for everyone to know the position being advocated. Having full knowledge of the conversation at hand gives people interested in this topic the tool to come to their own conclusion about how they should feel about this particular issue. Even if someone isn't interested in this topic on a cultural level, they should be interested in it on a personal level, because it might one day affect their family or themselves. In some ways, this issue and debate affects everyone because there could be a possibility that we contract a terminal illness, and when that happens, we are either denied the option of PAS or we are grants this option, depending on its status..