Dear JL Deland,
thanks for your thoughts.
One under God gave me the epithet Ssssqueers one time and I rather like the sibilance (and the inference); and the posts I make are not always taken up 'directly', so I sometimes feel like background noise..
I wasn't entirely serious about euthanasia for the depressed; I'm not entirely convinced that most manic depressive cases are pathological. I would prescribe a long vigorous walk for these patients, to remind them of how basic life is--and maybe medication if that didn't work. Curiously, I believe bipolar disorder is almost unheard of in third-world countries? According to Peter Ackroyd, Charles Dickens walked on average at about four and a half mph, and that was off the beaten track and without his nikes on (I confess I doubt the sainted Ackroyd; few biographers research their subject like he does, but I've put it to the test and Dickens must have been sprightly indeed! Dickens was a prolific walker, indeed he was prolific at every thing he did (except longevity and mediocrity); for Dickens, ten 'miles' was a stroll and twenty miles was a mere streych of the legs. 'Twas virtually his quotidian routine; he terrified his guests when he suggested a post-prandial perambulation.
I defy anyone not to cheer up on a long walk, and if they still feel like suicide after fifteen or twenty miles, I reckon give em the pill, they've earned it. The depressive malady of our times is due mainly to being too sedentary.
I'm interested in the way we attach such gravity to the notion of voluntary death. A tacit value system, or at least equivocation, lurks behind every philosophical dilemma we care to trivialise, and this in a time when universalism has supposedly been routed by 'pragmatism', lol. Whenever I feel down in the dumps, I walk and think, or I sing along to the ending of The Life of Brian. :-)

"We have already explained in simple terms that the way the whole thing ACTUALLY works is that a person must ASK to be euthanized before any attempt is made."

That is assisted suicide, KH, not euthanasia. As severin points out with the Living Will, euthanasia is about making a decision to apply to yourself at a point in the future when you cannot make a decision.

Like the pro-lifers, euthanasia advocates are making an extrapolation, and this I think is a problem. The pro-lifers look at a newly formed zygote, extrapolate to the human being and say, "How can you destroy this wonderful person?". Similarly with euthanasia, you extrapolate to a decayed shell perhaps decades hence and say, "It would be best for me to be humanely killed were I like this.". In each case, how closely will the future match our speculation? Is our present life best directed by decisions we make now, or should it be subjugated to decisions we made in the past or may make in the future?

For believers in evolution like me, I can extrapolate back to a progenitor of human life. But if I stepped on a little feathered or furry creature, I wouldn't worry about whether I had destroyed the progenitor of a species that supersedes human beings, though I would regret the life I had destroyed.

Dear Squeers,

One summer day in Syracuse, NY the sky was blue' and the sun was shining. I got out and walked. I felt so good that I walked at least twenty miles at what I thought was a rapid pace. Next I got out of bed and couldn't stand up. It was a march fracture. The pounding had broken a bone in my foot, and it took a while to heal. I had been in the infantry during the war but never walked as far as I did that day. In fact I never walked so far in one day before or since.

Loudmouth <" I'm starting to think I will need to sign an affidavit to set out clearly and definitely that I do NOT want to be put down - by all means, turn off the machines and give me the morphine if I can't take the pain...".

At last! Yes, that is what we all want Loudmouth- the right to CHOOSE if we want to be euthanased or not- and under what circumstances.
The Living Will is a document that can be used by all people- either for or against euthanasia. 'Voluntary' is the key word here!

All I hope, for your sake Loudmouth, is that you will allowed to change your mind should you realise that some deaths are just not bearable if we can get out of it.

Fester, you still seem to fall way outside the debate again to the point it's almost as if you're only here for trolling.
First a definition that is much poorer than previous ones made in this very thread, then a quick gloss of an issue without any reference to the more substantial points made on the same issue just LAST PAGE, and then the remaining 60% was you trying to look clever by making an irrelevant philosophical statement.

Try reading something and finding particular flaws instead of chip in some totally irrelevant point long bypassed by the rest, next time.
This would be almost excusable for someone who only jumped in for the first time late- you have no such excuse.

Wow I’ve had quite a few posts to catch up on since I last posted.
Thanks for sticking here, King Hazza. But I agree that it is fruitless if people don’t read the posts with care.

Loudmouth, Euthanasia requests will automatically be rejected if there is no euthanasia ‘contract’ available, which the patient should have organised when s/he was still mentally well.
Euthanasia patients are, anywhere in the world, as far as I know, only euthanised if they have their euthanasia papers in place and if they also suffer from a painful and terminal illness besides Alzheimers, or when Alzheimers would be the cause of their constant pain.
It is all about rights and freedom of choice.
It would be unsatisfactory if a euthanasia law would allow only those terminally ill people in pain to be euthanised on their request if they don’t suffer from a form of dementia also, and would prevent people with the same illnesses to be euthanised just because they ALSO, in addition to their painful, terminal illness, happen to suffer from dementia/Alzheimers.

Fester, you need to understand that euthanasia is an autonomous decision because family approval is not necessary. The person’s euthanasia arrangements, documented and recorded by a team of medical professionals, would override any wishes or demands of family members.

Dickybird is a fresh breath in this discussion to bring up the point of HOW we can get the law changed. Excellent suggestions and I will proceed to write to each candidate.