Celivia, and Your Majesty,

Provided there is explicit, preferably written, assent by a person (and even in those cases, there are many 'ifs') then assisted suicide, or voluntary euthanasia if you prefer, could be promoted for legalisation. But change of heart ? People being 'persuaded' by relatives who stand to gain ? Many 'ifs'.

Can you at least concede that, past a certain point, there is indeed a slippery slope ? Up to that point, okay, since the person has (hopefully) clearly expressed a choice, to sort of delegate their autonomy - but past it, that's murder. Yes ? No ?

And even by your definition, this cannot extend to advanced Alzheimer's patients, or people who are too insensate to express their wishes, or who might be, in a doctor's opinion, simply depressed. Yes, there are many 'ifs'. This is by no means so open-and-shut as you seem to think, no offence.

Joe

“Abortion is already legal and what you say is moot.”

Perhaps so Celivia, however, The Bush administration’s multimillion dollar campaign against H.I.V./AIDS in Africa directed money to programmes that promoted abstinence before marriage, and to condoms only as a last resort.

87% of the counties in the United States have no abortion provider. Apparently one third of American women live in these counties, which means they have to travel outside their county to obtain an abortion. So much for legalised abortion in the United States of America – the third largest populated nation on the planet.

The 2008 Republican Party platform in the US opposed abortion stating, "At its core, abortion is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life. Women deserve better than abortion. Every effort should be made to work with women considering abortion to enable and empower them to choose life."

Apparently that ideology also applies to the grossly deformed live births and the mangled still-born babies born in Iraq, a result of the US war machine willfully exposing innocent civilians to depleted uranium?

Celivia and Severin- thanks, and I do plan to stick around- although I would answer a question once, maybe twice and move on to anything new asked.

Loudmouth- it's not really a hard definition murder/euthanasia.
If you kill someone and they do NOT want to die, it's murder.
If you kill someone and they ASKED you to, you're assisting their suicide.
If you kill someone who asked you to humanely and painlessly, you are euthanizing them.

The person has to ASK you before you are allowed to kill them. Simple.
The slippery slope, based on existing standards in the few countries that have legalized it, is pretty gritty. Having a doctor come in and interview you to assess if you indeed wish to kill yourself now, or if you cannot express yourself, weighing in any coerced motivations (which I will talk about soon), and of course the requirement that the patient is suffering a debilitating long-term/permanent or terminal disability. Outside that it is nobody's call but the patient's.
On the note of the evil inlaws trying to get an inheritence scenario, aside from the numerous easy ways to bump an old person off and make it look like an accident, is the question of how exactly does one disqualify the motive. Would a person getting talked into saying they want to kill themselves actually want to live? What if, on the discovery of thier family betraying them, they lost the will to live a few extra days or weeks in the hospital?

And Rhys- this may come as a big shock but a fertilized egg can only turn into a person artificially anyway (either by attaching itself to a woman and living off her bloodstream, or in an incubator).
Anyway, Protogoras, Celivia, Severin have also raised some points you should try to answer before you take the easy route to try to argue arbitrary semantics of embryonic humanity as a way to ignore the others (others take note if he does anyway).

Hi Protagoras,
I like your posts/opinion on abortion. I see what you mean about abortion in the USA. I had only Australia in mind when I made my short comment. I chose to discuss only euthanasia in this thread because I find both euthanasia and abortion involved and difficult topic to discuss and I’d rather focus on one at a time only.
I would love to discuss abortion another time in another thread. I have no disagreements with what you said.

King Hazza,
I’m glad you decided to stick around and fair enough that you want to answer a question once.
Thanks for answering Loudmouth’s question so well.

I would like to add, if I may, that I see the difference between assisted suicide and euthanasia as follows:

Assisted suicide:
If a person wants to kill him/herself and needs someone’s help, and if his helper assists him, then this is called assisted suicide. The person who assists might, for example, fetch the euthanatica, or even only a glass of water, or help him sit up while the patient swallows liquid or a pill meant to kill him.

There is also a computerised system that can be used with the intravenous method in where the doctor inserts the needle attached to a syringe, and then the patient can touch the YES window on the screen at any time he wants, for the euthanaticum to be released into his blood stream.
A doctor then is said to assist with suicide rather than being the euthaniser.
The doctor did all the prep, the patient then goes through with it when he is ready.
Of course, this is only possible when patients are physically able to touch a screen, and mentally able to understand what it means to touch the YES window.

Most patients prefer their doctor to do the injecting.

Euthanasia:
If a person asks someone else to kill him/her, and that person kills the patient after his clear request, then it’s called euthanasia.
Legal euthanasia is always performed by doctors and most of the time the patient has opted for intravenous euthanatica.
Doctors who euthanise patients received special training.
Naturally, students of medicine are not taught about all the different euthanatica and how to use them, and about fatal dosage, at least not enough to enable to them to euthanise a patient as comfortable and painless as possible.
They will also need to learn how to advice patients about their options.

Loudmouth,
as King Hazza explained, there are no slippery slopes where legal euthanasia has been clearly lined out. There are clear rules, and the team of medical professionals have no reason to go around or beyond that. They wouldn’t want to risk their reputation by killing a patient illegally rather than legally. And there would be no need.
Again, there is a much higher slippery-slope, a much greater chance that a patient will be unvoluntarily killed in countries where there is no euthanasia law in place, than in a country where euthanasia is legal.

Feel free to give me a scenario in where you outline how this slippery slope is supposed to happen, if you’re still unconvinced.
I do want to understand exactly what you have missed or what I perhaps have misunderstood.

Do you understand what the proponents of euthanasia have written, Rhys Jones?
Like King Hazza, I would really like a discussion about this. What are your objections exactly, now you have read our opinions?

Loudmouth <"The right to suicide - call it what you like - yes, with counselling."

What a bizarre statement!
People already go out to commit suicide if they wish- and don't need anyone's permission or help.

If they kill themselves- it is suicide.
They already have that 'right'!
Are you suggesting they go and get counselling about trying to stop their suicidal thoughts, or counselling to help them to decide how or if to suicide?

I have cared for many people in all stages of Alzheimer Disease (which is only one of the many different forms of dementia).

The first stage is when you start really losing your short-term memory. At this stage you are diagnosed and you find out what is ahead of you. Depression kicks in then- as you can imagine.

Then you start losing the memory of how to manage your own affairs- like banking, paying bills, how to drive, how to work appliances.

Then you forget how to look after your personal hygiene, how and when to toilet yourself, how and when to eat or drink, how to use tools or utensils, how to hold conversations and how to read or write.

Then you forget the names and faces of all those people you have known over the past 40 years or so, and you start looking for your long dead siblings or parents, you forget when it is time to sleep and when it is night or day, and you forget where you live or who you live with.

Lastly, you forget how to talk or walk, how to swallow and how to regulate your urine or bowel movements. You forget how to move in bed and you curl up into a foetal position, and you live like that, maybe for many more months or years until you stop breathing.

Now, I ask all of you- which stage of this life would you rather not go through?
Voluntary Euthanasia should also be available for these people as well