euthanasia (physician assisted suicide) should be legalized?

Yes or no? What are your opinions and why? I personally am against it because I am catholic. It seems like most of the senial people want it, but that's just me. What do you guys think?

For those of you who would like to know more about it instead of answering without knowing.[=http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia]For those of you who would like to know more about it instead of answering without knowing.

It all depends IMO, if someone was to be suffering for the rest of his/her life without any hope of living, and they want to just end it there and not suffer as well as make their families suffer (emotionally/financially, etc.) then I don't have a problem with that if thats what they want....It is their life, they should be able to choose....

But for those who just have a bad social life and are young without much real life experience outside of school and they believe they have a horrible life, when usually it's not so bad....They should get help not try and kill themselves....

Just for the sake of answering the question though, yes it should be legalized....It should be someone's right to end their own life if they choose....I've heard some conspiracy theories of why it's not legal now because the government just wants the tax money from the people and the more people they have living the more money the government makes off of them, so they don't want people killing themselves so they can make more money.....Doesn't sound that off actually, could be true...

[quotefdd496f899="Veek"]For those of you who would like to know more about it instead of answering without knowing.[=http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia]For those of you who would like to know more about it instead of answering without knowing.[/quotefdd496f899]


Yeah i read up on that, but right now i am not gonna write a huge summary of why i am not for it. I am mainly using this as statistics for a paper, and i wanna see what others think, rather than what I think.

If I had no chance of making it and only a few weeks to live and they were going to be in pure agony, I'd want to die...

good point. The way i think of it is power and moral issues. The more doctors would be accustomed to it, the more power they would have. It is as if they could become desensitized to it and would be playing the role of God. I was just reading something about the Dutch and about euthanasia during the Nazis period in Germany. Interesting stuff. I am sure this will make a good paper. I plan on encorporating polls, interviews, and other stuff into this.

Well where do you draw the line is always the problem. When is someone close enough to death? What about clinical depression?

i think if someone wanted to die, they should be allowed to so long as nothing physically bad happened to anyone or thing around them

[quote149e460f96="Wolfeman"]Well where do you draw the line is always the problem. When is someone close enough to death? What about clinical depression?[/quote149e460f96]


Yeah good point, it's iffy. On one hand maybe there is no cure and they are perfectly sane and want to die, on the other hand maybe they are senial and don't know what they want. Government and doctors could get carried away and that could be a problem. So so so many things to concider.

[quotec92e20c02a="Powerbook"]concider.[/quotec92e20c02a]
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lol

[quote4ae817c911="AbSoLuT_xXxEr0"][quote4ae817c911="Powerbook"]concider.[/quote4ae817c911]
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lol[/quote4ae817c911]



pssssh don't hate ) I guess proof reading is always good )

any form of suicide should be illegal.

[quote538ff7dbe1="ibtheib"]any form of suicide should be illegal.[/quote538ff7dbe1]


why do you think so?

[quotedcc61076d4="ibtheib"]any form of suicide should be illegal.[/quotedcc61076d4]

How would you punish those that break the law?

[quotec1f916f51d="KeithA"][quotec1f916f51d="ibtheib"]any form of suicide should be illegal.[/quotec1f916f51d]

How would you punish those that break the law?[/quotec1f916f51d]

DEATH!

does anyone in south california remember that attempted kidnapping last year that went awry and ended up with the suspect in a stolen car with a gun aimed at his head and police surrounding him everywhere? the dude threatned to blow his head off if any of them came in close and eventually he surrendered, but why would police care if he killed himself? i never got that

[quote239865a2c7="syriandoode"]does anyone in south california remember that attempted kidnapping last year that went awry and ended up with the suspect in a stolen car with a gun aimed at his head and police surrounding him everywhere? the dude threatned to blow his head off if any of them came in close and eventually he surrendered, but why would police care if he killed himself? i never got that[/quote239865a2c7]



ummm that's not euthanasia. Killing someone for administering the suicide definitely wouldn't be a solution. It would be almost contradicting the law. Mental confinement or prison time would probably more suitable.

Euthanasia is state assisted suicide...

I am against any kind of assisted takeing of life (sorry that probably wasn't the best way to say it) For morial and religious (i'm a christian) reasons. Although I do understand a few cases where it is somewhat justifiable I would never vote for it.

My stance on abortion is very much the same.

[quotef83cdc53e3="CollidgeGraduit"][quotef83cdc53e3="KeithA"][quotef83cdc53e3="ibtheib"]any form of suicide should be illegal.[/quotef83cdc53e3]

How would you punish those that break the law?[/quotef83cdc53e3]

DEATH![/quotef83cdc53e3]

+kma.

Remember I had to write a paper on this topic for some phliosophy class.
Didn't finish paper in on time and asked prof for an extension. He said don't worry about it that I would get an A anyways.

Anyways I'm for it as long as it involves an individual, who's a vegetable.

My grandfather was in a coma and was diagnosed as brain dead.

Now since my parents were the main care takers they had to make a decision regarding whether or not to keep him going. Although they had to discuss with other family members they ultimately agreed there was no real point to keep him alive at that point.

i dont understand any for the "i am ___(religion)___" so i am [for/against] this" stance. it is incoherent, in my opinion.

i am a christian, and that means i believe some guy named jesus died for peoples sins and i believe in forgiveness and that little bit that someone somewhere said about "love thy neighbor", although i guess some group of people somewhere decided to not listen to that anymore. anyways, whatever anyone else wants to think about that belief is their own business--i wont go any further into religion, and i do not claim that my belief is superior to any other.

i think people need to have the right to die with some dignity left, as opposed to dying in severe pain, laying in their own filth, being completely unable to function, etc.

some people mention that life has the greatest possible value, more value than anything else, and therefore it should be preserved in any and all cases (although that changes drastically when the death penalty comes into question, but thats for another thread at another time). anyways, i too believe that life has a very high value, but that is why i think VOLUNTARY euthanasia should be permissable. if something has such high value, why let it be devalued by an extreme amount of negativity, pain, loss of control... why let it be devalued by letting it become totally worthless? dont take the word 'worthless' the wrong way. i mean it this way if i am terminally ill, suffering from constant pain, completely helpless, no amount of morphiene can dull the pain, and no happiness can be derived from anything, i would consider my life worthless not only to myself, but also to those around me.
i dont think the argument "you may not want to live, but your death will make people unhappy" is very valid. yes, the fact that i would die would make people sad for the simple fact that i am dead. but when someone is in unbearable pain with terminal throat cancer, cant function on their own, etc. would you really be absolutely devistated that if they die? yes, its sad that a life is lost, in ANY case... but chances are, your true thought would be "i am terribly upset that _____ died, and i wish they were alive and well"...i doubt anyone would say "i want _____ to be alive again, even if it means that they live in constant, horrible, uncontrollable pain, because life has the utmost value and should be lived even in these circumstances."

i apologize for the... boringness... of my argument. i am actually preparing to write a 7+ page paper on euthanasia for my ethics/philosophy class, due friday night. something tells me i will be copying and pasting some things i just wrote... and adding punctuation, of course.

I don't see why everyone is up in arms about it, there have always been problems with this since the beginning of time. Every few years someone finds a reason to bring it t the forefront like it's the most horrible thing ever.

People...deal with it, the kids in Japan and China are here to stay, hello kitty, domokun, voltron, the weird 50's phase they went through, buying up all the panda merchandise they can get their hands on....who are they hurting?


meh...figured this made as much sense as the rest of the personal opinions about a decision that should be left up to the individual.

Think about this for a minute, all the catholics (or any other religion) who assert that "their God and their Religion" says this is wrong, your religion doesn't make policy for everyone else. The kosher jews don't eat pork products, does that mean pork should now be illegal? Seperate your religious beliefs from the thoughts on laws for our society. Should it be legal? That should be determined by circumstance and individual case, not by religious belief.

i deff. think it should be legal. if someone is in so much pain because they're dying, then why not just let them die earlier if that's what they want. i've done 3 papers on this, and everytime i learn something new.... anyway i've done my research, and i deff. think people should be allowed to purposly OD if they are near death anyway.

In principle, yes. In practice, [i77772c9b09]no[/i77772c9b09].

It needs to be taken into account that organ donation is a common practice. One that is presented to the families of those who are terminally ill, or in vegetative states. It also needs to be taken into account, that doctors and/or hospitals [i77772c9b09]do[/i77772c9b09] receive financial benefit from procuring such organs.

No, I'm not insinuating there aren't checks and balances to prevent hospitals from becoming chop shops, but certain cases have been documented in the press where rules have been bent to say the least.

Now, I can't cite a particular case off the top of my head, in which a patient's life support was terminated with the primary reason being to salvage organs, yet whose long term diagnosis might have been disputed by other physicians. However, that possibility exists (if it hasn't happened already), and for that, I cannot support euthanasia as part of medical practice.

I absolutely beleive trhat euthanasia should be legal. I'll keep my reasons short

1. One is able to commit suicide on thier own.
2. Methods for commtting suicide are easily available.
3. Unfortunately, many commonly used methods are not always fatal (ie inentional overdose, etc...) and can result in further suffering for the individual when they awake
4. Suicide by means of firearm is very...messy. I had a very close friend commit suicide with a deer rifle in his car. He called his family, told them he was driving to the dump and he would be dead when they were there. Not only did they have to deal with the death of their son, but they had to witness him in that deformed state, deal with the brain matter splattered car, etc. With euthanasia, the death would at least appear calm to the family and those left behind. Parts of the greiving process (such as an open casket funeral) would still be possible.
5. physical and/or emotional pain can beso great that death would be better.

Unfortunately their are many aspects that would need to be dealt with if euthanasia was legalized.

1. often elderly people perceive that they are a burden on their family. it would be a tragic loss for all parties if someone was euthanized because they were actually wanted.
2. temporary mental instability would need to be accounted for
3. it would be essential to determne that one being euthanized actually wanted to die, rather than their guardian or family members confusing or tricking them into it.
4. their would need to be a waiting period or something of the sort to deter individuals from making the decision based on the spur of the moment.

As a future doctor myself, I say no. As a doctor you take an oath to do no harm. Your job is to preserve life.
I understand for family and loved ones, watching someone you care about die a slow and painful death due to terminal cancer for instance may be difficult. But it wouln't be grounds for me to assist in killing a patient.

I also plan to be a doctor (likely a neurosurgeon). Leaving someone alive can (arguably) be doing them more harm than helping them die peacefully.

That said, whatever type of medicine i enter, I would not perform euthenasia myself (regardless of legality)

That's the problem. Is any given physician fully equiped to make such a subjective decision?
For me the answer will always be no. And if you're interviewing for med school you're better off saying no as well.

[quote91dfb0c39b="Narakukuku"]
I understand for family and loved ones, watching someone you care about die a slow and painful death due to terminal cancer for instance may be difficult. But it wouln't be grounds for me to assist in killing a patient.[/quote91dfb0c39b]

agreed, but i do not think it should be left up to family to decide. i think it needs to be a patients personal decision. if the person does NOT want to be euthanized, regardless of what anyone else says or wants, they should never be euthanized. thats why i think living wills are so important, and i need to practice what i preach and get one myself. its just not something many people want to think of, so many people dont have

on the topic of a doctors job i do agree that a doctors job is to do no harm, but i think that in some cases of a person, of sound mind, wanting to be euthanized, keeping them alive IS harming them. i also think "letting them die," which is allowed by the american medical association because it is simply withdrawing/witholding treatment, is a good idea in theory but almost barbaric in practice, in many cases, because of the suffering the lack of treatment will cause before the person dies.
gah.... i need to leave you guys alone and just write this paper!

I am doing a project about this in class, and my group is for it. The only place in US that has this legalized is in Oregon. Also if anyone knows about Jack Kevorkian we may visit him since its a 2-3hour drive away. Anyways thats my 2 cents and I actually know quite a bit about this issue.

I am also doing a giant project on this which is due in May.

[quotef321e01dc4="Narakukuku"]That's the problem. Is any given physician fully equiped to make such a subjective decision?
For me the answer will always be no. And if you're interviewing for med school you're better off saying no as well.[/quotef321e01dc4]

its not the physician making the decision. it is the individual.

[quote3bd4e77603="brendenipod"][quote3bd4e77603="Narakukuku"]That's the problem. Is any given physician fully equiped to make such a subjective decision?
For me the answer will always be no. And if you're interviewing for med school you're better off saying no as well.[/quote3bd4e77603]

its not the physician making the decision. it is the individual.[/quote3bd4e77603]

But 9 times out of 10 it is the physician performing the procedure. I'm not sure how many doctors would actually want to go through with something like that.

it's murder

yes absolutely the doctor is performing the deed, but that doesnt mean that they are making the decision the "subjective" part of the decision about whether life or death is better would be done by the patient.

Like I said, I would never do this as a doctor, regardless of legality, but there are some who will.