I wasn’t just positive where a thread of this nature would belong, but it seems to be most applicable to social issues.
Euthanasia. First of all, what are your general thoughts on it? Should it be allowed at all, under what circumstances, should it be mandatory, should doctors be required to administer it to anyone who askes…all that good stuff.
I may not have searched hard enough, but I didn’t find a thread on this yet, so…yeah. Have at it, please.
I’ve got no problems with people wanting to kill themselves.
Doctor assisted suicide is a bit different than plain suicide.
Well you shouldn’t expect doctors to do it, with the Hippocratic Oath and all.
_<
How is it different? We make wheelchair ramps, so that people who can’t walk can get to the same places as people who can. If I’m too old and feeble to kill myself, and no one will help me, it’s almost like a sort of discrimination.
Not really. It would be discrimination if people said “I won’t kill you, because you are old.”.
The reason it is different is because you are bringing in a second party to kill you.
Also, doctors killing their patients is bad economics. 
Sigh. Just let the thread die a peaceful death now.
Life is important because thats all that there is. The choice of whether or not someone wants to live that life, should be, given proper circumstances, their own. The quesiton becomes why do they want to die, is their judgement seriously impaired, are they curable and so forth and so on.
I am n ot going to dwell on cases of obvious brain-death where people want to keep some piece of steak hooked up to machines. However, even issues of being stuck in a vegatative state of say, ten years, i’m not at all confident that i’d want to be killed in that state, i’m not confident i’d want to live either though. When you put these people in MRI’s somtimes when you talk to them about trying to remember moving around their houses, the proper brain areas see spiking activity. What is life like for these people, how aware are they? Its hard to tell, but some, a lot, aren’t ‘brain-dead’ and the choice should be theirs, figuring out what they want is the hard part.
But if you have fatal cancer and your life is nothing but pain and delusion (because of being in so much pain) breathing is a living hell and etc, the person should be able to make that choice. What else is it but torture anyway? Its their life, all is left is suffering, and if they want to experience absolute OBLIVION instead of that PAIN, well, thats a testament to what the experience must be like.
Life is all we have, there is no golden-carrot of heaven, but even considering that, some people choose death rathering then deal with the HORROR of some diseases.
Theres no real debate minus religious nonsense, I think the circumstances in which doctors can do that for patients and etc are HIGHLY debatable though. The issue of whether someone is cognitively impaired is a subtle one in medical-situations determining whether or not the person is capable of making those decisions.
clever.
if a kid is a threat to himself he should be treated, if he is a threat to others he should be guarded.
if he is in unbearable pain we should attempt to ease it, but not go for mercy killing, lest we forget that despite all suffering, the mere ability to feel even pain can be seen as a gift in the face of oblivion.
Though, doctors s-l-o-w-l-y killing their patients is good for business. 
Well, as long as each operation costs more than the last. There must be progress somewhere.
And if I’m not appreciating a life of pain?
If the person is going to lay in bed for 5 years, no cure possible, pain for the rest of their life…why not end it early?
I know of some-one who was on diomorphine as they approached the end of their terminal illness, and the prescribed dose didn’t prevent the pain from coming through so the visiting nurse kept upping the dosage to keep the pain at bay - on the eventual day that the person came to their demise: the nurse enclosed that she didn’t think it was the illness that ended the patient’s life, but the high dose: which had now doubled from what it initially was - I know that they were all just happy that the person had a painless/unneccessarily-prolonged death.
It’s more inhumane to prolong a painful death…
Every life is precious. That is debatable.
…So…debate it…
My, how authorative of you! 
I am a terrible no good, non american socialist so I say… maybe. Wasn’t that like totally deep?
The ethical answer is obviously, Yes. People should have control over their personal destiny.
The ethical slash psycological slash economical answer is maybe, Not quite yet.
Until we have the ability to tell whether someone might actually be able (or want) to recover into this sphere and be happy or not, or whether the desision to die is neuro based or socially based, then maybe we should wait until we legalize euthanasia.
(sorry for not writing a proper complete sentense… but I really don’t care for proper. Sorry, I’m not english)