Should Euthanasia or Assisted Suicide be openly allowed?

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I cannot imagine the law would be that difficult. The number one rule would be that the person requesting suicide assistance was of sound mind, and gave repeated requests. A "Cool down" period would be a good idea too, and with those who aren't terminally ill, I could see doctor and psychiatrist visits being required. This would insure that depression, or a person being pushed is not happening.

That is a good Idea because I have depression frequently.

Not only should it be legalised it should become acceptable for a person suffering in agony, dying a slow excruciating death to want to take control of their death. My father in law is being destroyed by various cancers, and renal failure, he cannot tolerate opiates, and will not go into care. He is going to suffer a foul death. So good on you religious nutjobs your nonsense is making real people suffer unnecessarily.

If a person is critically injured in this country, or they have reached the age where work is not viable, we have programs where the government (By extension, the taxpayer, and the taxes paid in by the person leaving work) pays a monthly amount. Often, even food stamps are provided. The terminally ill are often also forced to use pain, and other medication to make the remainder of their lives comfortable. For every person opting out of the remainder of their lives, the tax money, supplies, and time required to continue their lives can be used elsewhere.

Those who currently choose to "Check out early" are usually penalized (Family is forced to pay for services/burial/debts owed. Life insurances also forfeit when a death is ruled suicide. While I can understand the latter, sometimes people pay in for decades, only to have what they have already paid for taken from their families. Those belonging to certain religious affiliates, are told that committing suicide is a most important sin, scaring them into dealing with whatever pain and discomfort they are in.

Not wanting to sound like a monster, but society has a fair amount to gain from considering assisted suicides.

Assisted suicide should be available for the terminally ill or those living in terrible pain. My mother died a slow agonising death from bowel cancer. She was a bed-ridden skin covered skeleton by the time she died. Unable to even stand up herself. She had no control over her bowel movements or bladder control. The little she managed to eat was usually vomited everywhere. She was in agony, taking morphine for three months. On one occasion she asked me to "do something" where the implication was she wanted me to help her commit suicide. I was in my early twenties at the time and found the whole situation extremely hard to cope with. I was unable to help her with her request. However, a few days later a McMillan nurse stayed overnight with her and she died in her sleep. My father and I strongly suspect that the nurse helped my mother along. It was a huge relief when she'd gone and stopped suffering. In retrospect she should have been allowed to die much sooner and with dignity rather than lying there in her own piss and s**t in agony waiting for the inevitable.

I've mixed feelings about assisting people to commit suicide for psychological or life situation reasons. If people with depression or a crappy life can be helped then that should be the first course of action. I tried to suicide a number of years ago from a massive prescription drug overdose (hundreds of tablets) washed down with a litre of whisky while in an abandoned scrubland where nobody would find me. However, I survived (I vomited the lot while unconscious) and ended up in hospital with hypothermia.

I don't need a state provided suicide kit.

It is highly likely I'll end up taking my own life at some point in the future. Likely after the passing of my wife (assuming I outlive her, but that seems likely as she is older than me and has a degenerative health problem). I am unable to find work and at 53 nobody wants to employ me. I have no income, no state benefits, nothing. In addition I have diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis and my body/health is generally running down and my memory / mental faculties are gradually eroding. I've been written off by society. So be it. On the death of my wife I will purchase four or five metres of very strong rope (around 1" diameter polypropylene) - no chance it will snap - I've already found exactly the rope I want at a particular hardware store and I'll make a proper 8 loop hangman's noose and commit suicide by means of what is called the "long drop" - in my case that's around a six feet drop. Death will be instantaneous and there will be zero chance of failure. The long drop ensures death is instantaneous because the neck snaps instantly or even rips the head off the body with a sufficient drop height. People sometimes make the mistake of making the drop too short, and the neck doesn't break. They can end up hanging there for up to half an hour or so gradually choking to death and unable to hasten the process or to escape their noose.

Assisted euthanasia should be legal. I see no point in tormenting cancer patients the last few weeks of their life.

That's rough Tallyman. I had no clue you were going through so much, and still come online here with a virtual smile. I fear I will be in your boat when I reach your age. I was diagnosed with Diabetes at age 18, and am at risk for high blood pressure. I'm working like a mule right now, but I have a back injury persisting since I was 5, so It's only a matter of time before SOMETHING fails, and when it does, I doubt I'll have paid enough into social security to go on for much longer (Though I've been paying in since age 14). The situation with your mother is the exact same thing we're going through with our room mate. She has been unable to stand for over a week now, which makes her bedridden. We must clean her, and change her bed and whatnot. She is now so far out of sorts, that it's rare to hear her say one word all day. But she's still there. Me, and one other roommate have spoken about the possibility of finding some way to help her out, but I don't have the courage to do it, and I don't think they do either. It's just a waiting game now. Best of luck to you though. Hope you and your wife do well.

If someone truly doesn't want to live any longer, it's no one else's business, and CERTAINLY not the government's, if they choose to end their own life. Laws against suicide, as long as no one else is harmed in the process, suggest we don't own our own bodies.

I sympathize with the suffering but suicide shouldn't be sanctioned by the government or given any medical legitimacy. I don't think you should force somebody to live longer than what is natural but to kill is another thing.

Then you have either, never seen anyone truly suffer or if you have, your religious nonsense has found justification in their suffering.

What religious nonsense? Do you believe I've have never seen anybody truly suffer? I don't think the government or the medical field should be in the business of killing people and that it shouldn't be given any legitimacy or stamp of approval.

That's easy to say unless you are living with someone who is terminally ill whose body is literally starting to rot and is nothing more than a skeleton with a skin, begging for their life to come to an end so the agony will stop. Other people's ethics are a wonderful thing - except for the people on the suffering end of them. Numerous doctors who see this suffering on a daily basis also agree that the role of the medical profession should be more than simply keeping people alive at all costs or even providing palliative care, it should also accept that death is a natural consequence of all life and people should have the right to bring that life to a dignified end when all quality of life has gone and indeed life has become a living hell.

I suppose what somebody does in their own home is their business, I don't personally believe people should be held criminally responsible for carrying out the wishes of the terminally ill if that truly is their wish but to give government approval and medical legitimacy to it is another thing. There does exist a slippery slope, I look at Belgium and am disgusted. The worst thing about it is that I don't think they're done, they'll push it even further.

I understand the arguments against the slippery slope, but having experienced the horror of my mother dying a slow, dehumanising and agonising death (I was around your age when it happened) convinces me that provision for assisted suicide should be made. At the moment this is done under the table; from what I can understand doctors and nurses routinely do assist terminally ill patients to die in various ways when they can do so without risk of discovery. In my mothers case there would be no autopsy because she was already diagnosed as terminally ill, so I think it highly likely the McMillan nurse slipped her some extra pain killers knowing it would kill her and finally put her out of her suffering. I am truly of the opinion that if someone is terminally ill but with their mental faculties intact, they should have the right to sign a document requesting the provision of medication that will bring their life to an end. Such a document should be witnessed by both a doctor and a lawyer/notaire and ideally a family member too, so there is no doubt as to the authenticity of the request. Nobody should be forced to go through what my mother lived through.

I voted "Yes" because even though I personally think that it is wrong it is NOT my right to make that decision for someone else.
In my opinion it is a very personal thing, and no-one else has the right to state their opinion about someone else making that decision for themselves.

I do believe in euthanasia and Oregon allows it to be done.