What is your stance on doctor-assisted suicide? For example, should a doctor accept money from the person wishing to die?

I don't know... I think they should get paid something, yes. So long as they aren't charging a person more than they can afford to pay. I mean, they are terminally ill and just want an end to the pain and suffering... it would be extremely low to not allow them to die with a little dignity unless they met a certain price. Just accept, if anything, what the person can give. Or, do it for free, as an act of charity and a final wish.

I’m pro assisted suicide. A long as some guidelines are set of course.

Who do we think we are, healthy, happy and employed, to be telling someone in such poor condition with no positive outlook that they should appreciate their life and deal with it

It’s murder.

It’s a difficult question. The money part disturbs me. Would these two doctors have assisted that woman in Japan to end her life if she hadn’t paid them 1.3 million yen? Also, the fact that she corresponded on social media with one of the doctors for 11 months doesn’t rule out the possibility that he may have talked her into making the final decision over a period of time.

My mother had Alzheimer’s for 8 years. For the last two, she was placid but incapable of doing anything or speaking, eating by herself or recognizing anyone. The staff at the care facility were wonderful, feeding her and changing her nappies, things like that. She was in no pain, but I knew she wouldn’t have wanted to live like that.

Yet if she had ever said to me and my siblings that if she ever goes like that one day, she would like a doctor to end it for her, I don’t think I could follow her wish. I wouldn’t even know how to find such a doctor.

There is a terrific Richard Drefus movie that deals with this topic, called “Whose Life Is It Anyway?”  Really worth viewing.

I assume anyone against it hasn't seen someone die from cancer or another terminal illness. Even with the best palliative care money could buy, my Father died in extreme pain, his body slowly destroying itself over weeks and weeks. Even his best days after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he would spend hours writhing in pain from the chemo and throwing up blood all over his house. He went from a healthy, happy man in his early 60s to waking up in a pool of vomit and blood, unable to control his bowels and without the strength to get out of bed in a matter of weeks. He didn't want to die in a hospital but at the end there just wasn't another option. He also wanted to be conscious and aware until the end but the pain was just too excruciating, we had to decide on his behalf to give him palliative care. He died regretful, in pain and very angry.

If it had been an option, I'm sure he would have decided early on to end it on his terms. We're from the bible belt so all he heard after his diagnosis was how he should fight it, how god was watching and miracles happen blah blah blah. The odds of surviving stage 4 pancreatic cancer that has metastasised all over the body is zero. He would have been much better off foregoing chemo and surgery and just dying peacefully on his own terms.

Minor point but important: euthanasia is defined as someone deciding the patient’s life is over and needs to end. Assisted suicide is the patient deciding to end their life.

If Japan ever legalizes assisted suicide I hope the decision is left up to the patient (perhaps consulting with his or her doctor, family and friends), not a committee of unrelated ‘professional’, and based on medical / scientific criteria.

I am 100% in favour of doctor-assisted suicide. It's odds-on I've got cancer in the post - hopefully many years from now - and I'm not going that way.

I would prefer a doctor to make sure it's done right, but even without one, I'm clocking out when I say so. I've seen enough people I love wither away to whispering skin and bones, pumped full of morphine and wrapped in diapers. No thanks.

It's a service I would pay for if it's available.

Doctors accept money all the time from people who don't wish to die, but die anyway since medical errors are the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.

Except in the US where the third leading cause of death is now Covid-19.

I think that doctor-assisted suicide is not so bad idea given the fact that patients suffering from serious disease are having a hard time in their life. If they desire to give up their struggle, that choice might have to be accepted. Also doctors need to allow to get in a family discussion about its patients.

Yes.  I wanna die when I decide its time.

If it is the doctor's job, why should the doctor not be paid?

It should be allowed for those who are deemed competent to make the decision. Why should anyone have a long, drawn out and painful death. It’s cruel.

Money aside, doctor assisted suicide should be allowed.

I remember seeing a documentary about Dignitas many years ago. The process leading up to the death is rigorous and explores both the medical and psychological situation of the person who wants to die (most of the cases featured in the documentary were refused). Even then, the doctor that actually administers the fatal dose can stop the procedure at any moment.

There will always be grey areas, but I think this kind of system is better than nothing. It is certainly gentler on the person's family.

If a doctor wants to assist, he can simply prescribe something and "warn" about the dangers of overdosing. Assisted suicide is still illegal, so taking money for it isn't going to help the doctor's case. Once he takes the money, he can't easily say he was acting out of compassion.

Doctors are surely the best people to assist someone of unsound body but sound mind in dying on their own terms.

I support assisted suicide. It is certainly better than being doped up on morphine or screaming in pain for your last days / months /years of life.

There is a rigorous process before legal assisted suicide goes ahead. The dying should not be forced to suffer because the govt. says so.