Thoughts on physician-assisted suicide?

As a hospice nurse, my mother tries to give people dignity and comfort in their last days. Terminal illnesses and accidents do terrible things to people's bodies and minds. Should people have the option to end their suffering and go out with a cocktail if they wish? I am talking about lucid people, not the mentally ill, etc.

I understand the religious debate, so please don't bring God into it.

Honestly, I feel that these people deserve the right to live, and by the same token, die. If we try our best, but there is nothing to do but let them suffer horribly for a long time before dying, who are we to say that they should have to suffer?! I believe that it is cruel to sentence these people to months -- or years -- of suffering, when they can go peaceably sooner.

Sometimes pain can be too much to bear, and if doctors do not help them, the patients can end it in painful ways.

I feel that they deserve the choice, just like, however right or wrong, we give women the choice to abort babies. That could be considered murder, but it still goes, so why does physician-assisted suicide count as murder?? It is their life, let them do with it as they will.

I belive terminally ill people wanting to avoid a long, drawn out and painful death should be able to take their own life under the watchful eye of a doctor, so as to not prolong suffering even farther.

In some cultures it is perfectly acceptable to take ones own life.

For people that want to take their own life just because their girlfriend dumped them or they lost their job....I would say either grow up or jump off a bridge and get it over with. They do not deserve the dignity of a doctor assisted suicide.

I think anyone who wants to avoid inevitable suffering by any means necessary, who is mentally capable of making such a decision, should be able to decide whatever he or she wants. We cant prosecute those who commit actual suicide, without assistance, but we don't prosecute people who attempt suicide either. In my opinion, this is the same thing. I don't think others should be able to make the decision for you, but you should be able to make the decision yourself and get assistance if needed, without fear of prosecution.

If your cat or your dog has a terminal illness and is living is constant pain, it is considered humane to euthanize. Why not for human beings too?

That is such a tough question - my Dad battled lung cancer for 20 months before he died but he never gave up hope. People do say, where there's life, there's hope but ...

If I had a terminal illness, I would not want my family to have to see me deteriorate before their eyes and I suppose me making that decision whilst lucid would stop that for them.

I feel in some ways the hospital made that decision for us because my Dad was also diabetic and they stopped treating him for that and obviously his body began to shut down etc. They told us he was not in any pain and could not hear or understand us,, this was the day before he died, but he was able to clearly say to both myself and my sister "look after her", meaning our Mum. They say the hearing is the last thing to go don't they?

You've really made me think tonight, thank you ...

~You want to leave the religious argument out of it. You can't. As long as we have a neo-con right wing fundamentalist "christian" congress (or voter base), assisted suicide ranks right up there with abortion as 'wrong' while capital punishment remains 'right' and 'just'. I never will understand that dichotomy. As to what we "should" be able to do or not do, we are stuck with the laws we have or we better be willing to accept the consequences for ignoring them. Unless you can find candidates who concur that the terminally ill should have the option of dying with dignity at a time and place of his or her choosing, those who want to mix the drink better do so such that it looks like an accident or be ready to pick up the cost of the tab.

I believe it should be my choice carry it out or not. If I get to that point, I'm just strapping the tank on my back and going for a really long, deep dive. No worries, no funerals.

The right of assisted suicide is efficient, in terms hedonistic calculus,
economic benefit, and natural consequences. The illegalizing of
assisted suicide is inefficient in those respects.

People that oppose the right of assisted suicide are people that desire
to cause inefficiency for the sake of symbolism, the symbol being an
imagined god, and/or the arbitrary concept of life. That desire is a
mental focus of crude blindness, which is a desire to disrupt all that
is fine and rightful. That desire derives from evolutionary psychology,
particularly a principle of evolution called 'the handicap principle',
which causes the deliberate sexual selection of inefficient traits.

I am 100% for it, I could go for a cocktail right now!