Euthanasia, support or not?

[Axeman]

Well the question is simple ,do you support or not?

Personally, I do, but only for terminally ill patients, I have seen my grandmother suffer through throat cancer before she passed away with a 6 year long struggle in which time she was in a total state of what was essentialy sedation, and living in an everlasting haze just doesn't seem worth it, not to mention all the physical suffering, I wouldn't wish that kind of suffering on many people.

[Centurion-Lucius-Vorenus]

It's your life, who am I to tell you that you have to live it, especially when your in a great deal of pain.

[Axeman]

So you would condone a guy having his heart broken at like 20, going into a clinic and say "kill me"?

Fine, if your that messed up you want to die kill yourself, gaurntee its harder when you do it to yourself, and I wouldn't want my money spent on killing those types of people.

[Centurion-Lucius-Vorenus]

So you would condone a guy having his heart broken at like 20, going into a clinic and say "kill me"?

Fine, if your that messed up you want to die kill yourself, gaurntee its harder when you do it to yourself, and I wouldn't want my money spent on killing those types of people.

That guy clearly needs some therapy. Supporting Euthanasia doesn't mean abandoning rationality.

[Earl of Rochester]

The last option is basically allowing medical suicide which is absolutely naive. I have had to spend considerable time and effort to convince someone not to kill themselves. Trust me on this one, suicide is not a choice, its on the same par as alcoholism as a disease. It must be cured, don't ever let anyone be consumed by it. You are not doing them a favor.

I'm sure someone will come and preach about individual liberties, but again, it is an absolutely naive position.

I voted the second. Euthanasia should be allowed for terminally ill patients, but only at their consent. Living wills count as consent.

[Axeman]

Id like to hear some arguements for against Euthanasia, I made a thread about this before but it died.

[Earl of Rochester]

Just to clear any possible confusion, I was not calling you out, just anyone who believes that hospitals should not only allow people to commit suicide, but that they should actively help them do it. It is sickening to me and surely to anyone who has had to deal with suicidal thoughts of a loved one.

[Axeman]

If your talking to me I voted the 3rd option....

[jankren]

Yes I support Asian youth. AZN PRIDE bro!

[Axeman]

Lol...

[kev-o]

It should only be open allowed terminally ill patients.

[Safekeeper]

I, in the spirit of the 'Fecking Christianity' thread, hereby raise this thread from the dead! ... ...

...

...Er ...yeah. Euthanasia.

I'm in favor of it only for terminally ill patients in great pain or other kind of major discomfort.

It's your life, who am I to tell you that you have to live it, especially when your in a great deal of pain.

Suicide cannot be considered a personal choice as it has devastating effect on the victim's loved ones, far more severely than if the person had died in, say, a car accident or to illness. The grief is more severe, the feeling of guilt is devastating, and worst of all, the group with the highest risk of suicide... are those who lose loved ones to suicide. This means, essentially, that one suicide easily can have a 'domino effect' and lead to more suicides, and if you add to this that in Norway, at least, the average person has twenty close loved ones, you're looking at a pretty bad situation, to say the least.

So in my eyes, good intentions notwithstanding, saying that suicide is a personal choice even though it directly causes a horrible life situation for an average of twenty people... is to me akin to saying that drunk driving is a personal choice and that the wounding or killing of other motorists in the car crash that might ensue is just a side-effect that doesn't change anything.

Oh, and there's also that nearly all problems, no matter how horrible, do get better with time. I've known people who have been at an absolute rock bottom in life and watched them go from a state of Hell to doing fairly good in life. Ending a life that's temporarily not going too well is like amputating a leg that's temporarily broken.

Oh, and just so there won't be any confusion later in the discussion - euthanasia only refers to actively ending a person's life. Ending life-prolonging treatment such as that administered to Terri Schiavo, does not count as euthanasia.

[Ummagumma]

Suicide cannot be considered a personal choice as it has devastating effect on the victim's loved ones, far more severely than if the person had died in, say, a car accident or to illness. The grief is more severe, the feeling of guilt is devastating...

********. Selfish ********. "You can't die because no matter how unhappy you are, how at odds with the world you are, I'd miss you, so I can't let you die because I'd feel sad".

Help them while they are here, but understand there is only so much one can do. Some folks just don't get on, so respect their choices and let them take their own choices. I have been close to the edge myself (well, tipped over it once or twice, but... I guess I can't even do that properly! haha). What is worse, a life of **** with an inevitable death, an unfortunate accident taking away a happy and healthy individual or someone realising they have had enough, closing their affairs with perfect clarity and saying goodbye on their own terms? I know which order I place them in.

[The White Knight]

Suicide is still murder, and caring for someone is not selfishness Ummagumma.

That said euthanasia is a different matter. I find this comparable to the case of abortion, and not only because they share the same (often dangerously religious) opponents. Euthanasia is something that, like abortion, should be allowed to exist, in my opinion. This doesn't mean it should be encouraged, but it should exist so that people in the situation know there is a way out, and that they can use it, without getting in trouble with the law.

I understand there need to be regulations specifying the situations in which euthanasia is allowed or prohibited. The problem is: each case is different, which makes regulating all the more difficult. The line between euthanasia and suicide is sometimes thin, and suicide cannot be legalised. I'm happy I'm not the person who needs to make the laws, as I wouldn't know where to start.

[Ummagumma]

Suicide is still murder, and caring for someone is not selfishness Ummagumma.

'Caring' would involve respecting their wishes.. 'Don't die because I'd miss you' is a totally different motivation.

Sorry if I'm too far off topic - I'll leave you all to it.
*shuffles back into his corner*

[humvee2800]

What is with people here


Its self evident people here are not suggesting someone just be allowed to go into a hospital and ask to be killed. If someone has no chance of recovery and is in great pain, what position are you in to say no, and further inflict pain on them.

[Oswald von Wolkenstein]

You've confused the question. By conflating Euthanasia with Suicide. Redo.

(I support the right to self-termination -- but that's not what Euthanasia is -- it's just Good Death -- but good for whom -- don't support Euthanasia at all (but again assisted suicide, suicide, and removal of life support at the behest of the patient or those who speak for them -- is not Euthanasia per say.)

[Safekeeper]

You've confused the question. By conflating Euthanasia with Suicide. Redo.

Nope. Only difference between suicide and euthanasia is that in the latter case you involve a 'middle man'. Kinda like the difference between robbing your own apartment and hiring a crook to do it for you, you know?

Just to clear any possible confusion, I was not calling you out, just anyone who believes that hospitals should not only allow people to commit suicide, but that they should actively help them do it. It is sickening to me and surely to anyone who has had to deal with suicidal thoughts of a loved one.

Or, of course, your own suicidal thoughts. I find it more than creepy that so many people support this.

[Da Skinna]

Here's my whole speech for a debate I made over euthanasia, it eventually won over the most votes, winning 14-3...

Euthanasia should be allowed in Canada for terminally ill patients.

For people who are lying in agony in a hospital room, those who are living at home in serious pain due to a disease or cancer, who have to watch their families look after them, care for them, and live with the burden of caring for their loved ones who are in severe suffering, the idea of a graceful death starts to seem attractive. Euthanasia is not a nice word for killing old people. Euthanasia is not a euphemism. It means “good death” or “dying well” in Greek. It means being able to choose for yourself what you think is best for yourself. It is an issue of choice, and it really is the largest decision one can make, it is ending your life. But it is not up to the individual, for some people it is up to God, and to an even more omnipresent entity, the government.

For those who want to decide when they die, it should be their right. It must be understood that playing God doesn’t just mean ending a life, it also means creating a life, it also means sustaining a life that would not normally be able to survive on its own. That’s playing God. If God created this Earth and we think of ourselves as gods by destroying it, then by that same logic when we create are we not gods? Delaying the inevitable is playing God.

Now when one wants to choose when they die, themselves, no one else, that’s it, isn’t that the least conflicting instance of playing God, one’s own autonomy. And if for their last act of independence choose to end their life when they’re in horrible anguish, doctors because of the law do not allow for it, then we replace one God with our own, deciding for them, for whatever reason, they cannot die until their very last breath is drawn from a machine, as our God would have wanted it. We substitute their good judgment over themselves for our own, and who’s right in that? Who wins in that?

The idea of doctors going around en masse unplugging patients in hospitals if euthanasia were to be legalized, is one founded on a fear that soulless, cash-whore doctors thinking only of money will be in cahoots with the insurance companies in screwing old people out of their cash by killing them. But let me tell you, it’s looks a lot easier on paper to walk into the local insurance branch, take some money out on poor ol’ gammy, and walk next door and unplug her artificial lungs. People trust their doctors, there is no greater impact on a doctor when one of their terminally ill patients asks for an assisted death, asks to be freed from their suffering. It asks a lot of the doctor, and it cannot be forgotten by neither the patient nor their caregiver. Euthanasia would have to be regulated. At the same time, a patient should not be coerced or otherwise forced into the situation, there is no reasonable argument for forcing someone to take their own life. Just as there is no argument in denying someone his or her rights as an individual to choose for themselves what they think is best. Guidelines would be needed, just as laws requiring not only the doctor’s permission to end their patient’s life, but consultation with the family and most importantly, at the consent and request of the patient themselves.




Think about it this way, the person has the right to die, but it does not mean they need to exercise it, just as we have the right to remain silent when arrested, we don’t have to exercise all our rights. The availability of our rights is what matters here. The issue is the matter of choice, a God-given right or not, should be ours. We should be able to choose our time to die.

On the flipside, people should also have the right to live, which we do. People have the right to decide what’s best for themselves, if that means they would rather live through the pain and the agony, put their families through that, even out of spite, for some sick kicks as an old ****-kicker then it is their right to do so. Sparing a family of the guilt and misery they would have to endure watching their loved ones suffer, would be preferable to a lot of people who are in that situation, but simply cannot, because our laws say they cannot choose for themselves, because they don’t know what’s good for them.

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[jankren]

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I like. Thanks for supporting Asian Youth.