Assisted suicide is when a medical professional helps another person to end their life. While this sounds harmful, there are many cases in real life where such a procedure is desired and needed. People who have incurable diseases which give them constant pain with little chance of improvement, severe terminal illnesses, and incurable conditions where there is no hope of recovery. In these cases the patient may want to end their life.
In 1996 issue of the BMA News Review, a survey of over 750 GPs and hospital doctors showed that 46% of doctors supported a change in the law to allow them to carry out the request of a terminally ill patient for voluntary euthanasia, 44% were against euthanasia and supported the present law and 37% said they would be willing to actively help end the life of a terminally ill patient who had asked for euthanasia and so assisting suicide, if the law allowed it.
Level: Intermediate: B1/B2
Running Time: 90 minutes +
Materials included
This free lesson plan is suitable for adults, teenagers, and General English classes. Each plan includes:
- A debate motion
- A summary of the controversy
- Points for both Pros and Cons
- Language to use in a debate
- Debate role cards to help identify student groups
- An article
- Statistics (true or false exercise)
- Vocab for the topic
Preparation
Worksheet download
Assisted suicide should be legalised