Assisted Suicide

Dear friends, I beg for a little debate of the topic of assisted suicide. What are your thoughts on Dr. Kevorkian and his "angels of death?" Do you believe Dr. Kevorkian was wrong in his fulfillment of patients' wishes? Should he have gone to jail? I am interested in your thoughts. Do share.

I am all for the right's of the individual to do whatever he or she wishes as long as they do not impeded on the rights of someone else. If someone wants to die, they have that right. If someone wants to be helped in their endeavor that is their right. As long as the desire the help then the person assisting them isn't really harming them, if anything the good doctor was making death easier on people and I see that as a good thing.

It is still a rather depraved thing to want to do though.

As a matter of medical efficiency, hospice care would occupy a much smaller part of the medical industry if people who would normally enter the hospice situation were able to freely utilize assisted suicide services and there was no social stigma involved. Hospital beds would be freed up more rapidly, and due to decreased hospice demand more resources in the medical community would be available for somewhat more important issues.

It is already determined that the people in hospice care are going to die.

Now that does not mean that I am suggested slaughter or forced assisted suicide. I am merely stating that the medical industry would be somewhat more efficient if the practice was accepted rather than taboo. I myself am not a fan of suicide and would much enjoy living forever (if only to see what exactly we humans get up to). However, we humans must accept the fact that we are designed to die. At around age 40.

Evolution hasn't caught up with us yet.

Assisted suicide has been around a lot longer than I think people realize. Japan even had a whole ritual for this, called Seppeku (although not entirely the same thing). In warfare, people would sustain horrendous injuries that would be fatal, but not in a quick manner. It could take days for some of these people to die, and every second would be pure agony. So they would be killed quickly to ease the pain.

I think assisted suicide isn't wrong, and it's more of a medical homicide or Mercy Kill anyway. If a person has no chance for a cure, and if they are in immense pain, then they should be allowed to end it if they wish. It can not be forced on them though. I think Morally it's worse to let a person suffer in agony then let them pass away peacefully.

Plain and simple, if we do not own our own lives we own nothing at all. If we wish to die, or be assisted therein, then laws telling us anything other than "we can" are laws telling us that the government controls us to the point that we can't even die if we wish.