What's your stance on euthanasia?

Everyone has the right to choose when to die. Some governments don't recognize that though.

Well, it's legal in my birthcountry and I support it especially since I saw a one family member suffering five years, the last year unspeakably terrible before passing away - and no, the suffering is not as beautiful and noble as these terminal-illness dramas in Japanese television let us believe. It gives me peace of mind that if I'll get really sick, I'll have a choice.

I'm against the death penalty, but I think that a person has the right to choose to end their own life, especially if there are medical reasons for doing so.

I'm for it, but only if it's strictly regulated with clearly defined rules such as terminal illness, mental health issues, etc. to avoid any abuses.

Im for it! Because if there is a real medical reason then the person has the right to choose.

As long as there's life there's hope. That cure could be just round the corner

That would be your decision, and you would act on that.

Me, I disagree with you, and I have seen how accurate doctors' predictions can be regarding how much life and how little hope there is.

Of course everyone wants more time, but everyone wants a reasonable quality of life to accompany that time. Nobody wants to spend their last months or weeks vomiting up anything they can eat, urinating and sh*tting in a plastic bag, and either doped up on morphine or unable to move due to pain.

Nobody should be forced to suffer the pain, indignity and loss of self, if they choose not to.They're suffering enough already, what right do law courts have to add to that suffering?

Terry Pratchett, the world-famous author, has early onset Alzheimer's. He lives in the U.K. He could pop across to another European country that allows euthanasia to die in peace before he loses his mind, but he's been told outright that his wife can't go with him to spend his final moments with him, because the moment she comes back she'll be arrested as an accessory to his murder.

I think this puts the debate perfectly in context. People who want to die are beyond the law, they're dead. So instead governments threaten their family and loved-ones, effectively holding them hostage so that the person dies slowly and painfully in tremendous anguish. It is like a bad horror movie, and the politicians and preachers who support this are morally bankrupt. They're imposing THEIR moral values on what is entirely a personal decision and that harms absolutely no-one else.

I can't speak for everyone, but I am for the option to be provided by the state, and if/when I am ever ready to take that step, I want to be legally allowed to.

I am for it. Like some of the above commenters, I have witnessed a loved one die a slow, painful death (cancer) and have witnessed a loved one die from MS. Terminally ill people should have the right to decide when and how they want to die.

My stance:

Every Republican should put themselves out of my misery.

Strangerland

I'm with you. My greatest anxiety is that when I get old, I will be a burden on my family. I work hard to ensure that I will not be a financial burden, and, if all goes to plan, I will not. But even if I can pay for all that long-term care, I would not want to burden my wife and family if I had dementia, or Alzhiebmmers, or brain damage from a stroke, etc. My wife did not agree, until her grand dad suffered a stroke -- and lived another 10 years without saying another word, or even recognizing anyone. Really hard on the family, who, of course, took care of him at home until the day he died. Even wiping after him. Gawd.

My current plan is to go on a back-country camping trip if I know I face some sort of gradual losing of my faculties. But, if I am like my ancestors, I will most likely physically deteriorate before losing all my marbles. So, how am I gonna get out to a cliff face if I can't really walk more than a mile, and, importantly, don't involce anyone in my "self-choice" as they say in Japan.....

Maybe I'll need a second, but who has the fortitude to do that in these times...

My mom's cousin laid in bed with MS for about the last 20 years of her life unable to even communicate. Truly sad. I suppose I am for it in such hopeless/terminal situations.

Euthanasia creates strong emotions on both sides of any debate and convincing justification are found for both view points. However one person or group should not determine how, when, and if another person should die. Ending an individual's life, because someone decides that a person's life provides no value to the individual or to society is not ethical and never will be.

As long as there's life there's hope. That cure could be just round the corner... I don't believe in killing people because they feel they have no hope, or feel they are a burden... or because they're depressed. This isn't through some relligious thing (I'm an athiest) I just believe that as long as someone is alive there is hope.

Reckless, et al

The question is ambiguous. I'm curious about if your position is just for yourself, or whether you think it should be the law of the land.

IOW, you could be against euthanasia for yourself, but still feel the state should not make it illegal.

Of course I believe each person should be free to make their own choice. My concern is that making euthanasia legal/popular may bring society one step closer to taking similar action against old, ill, or developmentally challenged people without their consent.

Sensei

The connection is actually the inverse. Currently, the state has power to criminalize individual choice. So, actually, removing this power decreases the states power.

I'm dead against it.

I think in a few decades it will become compulsory! Logan's Run comes to mind ...

Here is my concern about euthinasia. If it becomes accepted practise around the world then it becomes the norm. But the more it becomes the norm the more the boundaries will be stretched. So then you have a man in hospital - he wife has already died, no other living relatives - but with care (which he can't afford) he could live another 5 years. So do we come to a point where the boundaries have been so far stretched that someone - perhaps a head doctor - could make the decision that if we save him we will only be able to turn him back out onto the street so the kindest thing would be to let him go. And stretching those boundaries further it is not beyond the realms of possibility that we come to a day where the decision is made that it is not viably economical to keep him alive any longer. And if people do not believe that those boundaries can be stretched that far - just think back how a proposal for legalising gay marrige would have been recieved in 1950. And yet now............

i think it is a dead good idea.