Sorry, Suze, but I have heard and read of so many people saying that they should have the choice of going when they want to when the topic of euthanasia is raised, and I have assumed that they also include the taking of their own lives when and in what circumstances they choose in that definition. So I have lumped such suicide (which is fine with me) in with a commonly-held notion of 'euthanasia'.

On the other hand, occasionally the discussion [not necessarily this one] slides towards 'helping' people die with 'dignity' [cf. Cornflower's perfectly reasonable objections] and even sort of left-handed references to Alzheimer's. So forgive me if it appears as if the scope of 'euthanasia' sometimes seems very broad, and not confined to doctor-supervised and/or -assisted voluntary suicide.

If the definition of euthanasia is confined to (a) suicide and (b) voluntary (attested in some way) dying under the supervision of doctors, then, subject to all the preliminaries of counselling, age, state of health, terminality, unbearable pain, exhaustion of palliative care, etc., I would not necessarily oppose it.

Joe

Yes, I see where you are coming from Loudmouth.
With Alzheimer disease, I would say that many people would also want to include the possibility of dying with this horrible disease as a top of the list reason for legalising euthanasia...I know I would.

If we all had a medical directive stating what we would and wouldn't accept as an end of life situation, long before we are diagnosed with any of these diseases/disorders, then I have no doubt Alzheimer disease (only one of a list of Dementia conditions) would be among them.
Slowly losing your mind, and then all your bodily functions over a period of maybe 10 years is truly awful.

Imagine not being able to say if you had pain? Elderly people with Alzheimer disease/dementia can still suffer from arthritis and all the other painful disorders that can affect the elderly.

As a nurse, myself and my colleagues often discuss the subject of Euthanasia of course, mainly because we get asked (begged) on almost a daily basis to supply the means to do it.

We think that if euthanasia became legal, the conditions we would definitely have on our own personal euthanasia list would include Motor neurone disease, Huntingtons Disease, severe strokes, Asbestosis, Mesothelioma, Dementia, and any cancer that causes pain not relieved by modern medications.

Atheist Foundation of Australia, "You are swaying off the topic of a system of Legal Voluntary Euthanasia into peripheral areas the AFA does not have a mandate on."

Whoops, forgot that your 'mandate' only extends to picking fights with Christians.

Cornflower,

“Whoops, forgot that your 'mandate' only extends to picking fights with Christians.”

Funny how some people get everything so wrong. The AFA is opposed to religious stupidity, which of course includes some parts of the stupidity by Christianity. If religious people, including Christians follow the stupid parts of their ‘faith’, no one really cares, especially the AFA. We figure they have enough to contend with without us adding to their burden.

David