Euthanasia for someone who is already clearly terminally ill with no hope and consents to it clearly is fine by me. If someone is going to die slowly and wants to end it quicker with dignity that is their decision. Personally I plan to hold onto every last breath until the bitter end.
As to aborting a disabled child - I do not believe that this is in any way humane. Some life is better than no life.
"a tortured one" - ask people alive today with disabilities if they are glad to be here. Most are.
On the question of abortion in general, I would still strongly object to aborting a foetus on the grounds of potential disability alone UNLESS there was a risk to the mother and child. It should also be noted that most woman do not even become aware they are pregnant until after some neural tissue has developed.
Mercy killing eh? I guess i'll stir the pot.
My Dad (AS, bit of a liberal) thinks the only way to maintain the worlds population is by having another world war.
Makes me bristle every time he mentions it
I consider people to have the right to commit suicide even if it's immoral, but people already have that under law and I think (including based on precedents in countries and states that allow this) that allowing special access to suicide for disabled and terminally ill people under law leads to a devaluation of disabled and terminally ill people's lives and a reduction of any sense of necessity of making people's lives livable, especially when it's less expensive to prescribe a lethal dose of medication or something.
People have the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment already under the law of my country (and hospitals often have the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment to others even if they want to live, and this is already being abused so I think that needs to be cut back on, not opened up to more possibilities), and people have the right to suicide. I just don't think that a society has any obligation to make suicide easy or pretty. I think a society in fact has an obligation not to selectively make suicide easy or pretty for select groups of people and not others, this has been shown to always increase discrimination and ill-treatment.
And I'm saying this as a person who has a pain condition that, prior to effective treatments, was well-known for causing suicides. I would rather have to, if I wanted to kill myself, either endure the pain (even the unendurable levels of it, which I'm quite familiar with), or kill myself in a way that was messy... rather have only those options, than live in a society that makes it easy for disabled and severely ill people to kill ourselves but (as has been shown to happen when it is allowed) doesn't bother to make it easy for us to live.
Life is reversible, death is not, and I'd rather err on the side of life if I have to err.
In my country, at least, even living wills and powers of attorney for healthcare don't protect a person. It's already far easier to die than it is to live if you're disabled or terminally ill. We don't need it more easy, and this sort of thing always ends up making it harder to live and easier to die. This isn't by the way about a fear of death, it's about a fear of being killed, two very different things. There have also been instances where people have signed an advanced directive, and then, when they sustained brain injuries or strokes, been able to indicate a wish to live, but been also considered incompetent to make that wish and been starved to death. This stuff happens. It doesn't need to be easier than it is, it's already too easy.
Also note that even people who have chosen death change their mind sometimes. Committing suicide on your own allows you to change your mind at the last second, as most people do. Asking for help to commit suicide takes that ability away from you, and in fact it has already happened that at least one assisted suicide went through over a person's last-second protests not to kill them; that person found it very difficult to speak clearly and the person killing him had no understanding of the guy's speech.
Basically I think this sort of thing sounds good to people interested in individual liberties, but it's not really about individual liberties at all in the end, it results in a loss of liberty higher than any gain in it. It dismays me that it gets put onto liberal and libertarian agendas so often, because it's just not (nor is it a conservative agenda, just to make that clear).
I think starvation and deprivation of water is a barbaric way of killing, there can be no mercy in dehydrating and letting someone waste away like that.
I think that in cases where someone is doomed to a slow, painful death without hope of a cure or remission, then it should be that person's decision, and theirs alone, to choose the terms of their leaving this world without being judged for their decision, I am personally in favour of choice in terms of abortion, but I am very against the present trend of it being viewed and used as just another form of contraception, its a difficult, thorny issue that I don't ever see as being resolved, such is the strength of opinion on the subject.
If I had a child with certain diseases, such as have no cure, are terminal and will lead to a child being brought into the world who's only prospects in their short life will be a few years of pain and anguish, or just rapid death, like tay-sachs disease, anencephaly or some forms of mucopolysacharidosis, etc then as much as it would pain me to do it, and I would have to think long and hard about carrying it out, but I think I would kill the child, painlessly and quickly.
That is probably going to drop me neck-deep into a vicious flame war, but I could not bring a child into this world, who's only future would be a few years of suffering and deterioration, and I stand by it.
For myself, there are times when I think I would take suicide as a way out, probably not for a purely physical condition where I had to cope with pain, there are strong painkillers and other drugs out there for those sort of things, but if I knew my mind was going to go, and I was going to become, with certainty, a hollow shell of myself, alzheimer's comes to mind, or things like CJD, things like that, I would go on until my mind started to deteriorate, while I still retained some 'vital spark', then, I would bow out while I still had my dignity, it is something that is important to me, I know I am going to go some day, but when that day comes, I want it to be on my terms, thats not to say that I would commit suicide instead of dying, but if I was to die by wasting away, losing all my intellect and dignity and becoming totally unaware of my surroundings, I would do it without hesitation.
Wondering, what about those people who can communicate somehow, yet are totally unable to physically initiate anything without the aid of another? what for people in that situation who want to end their lives painlessly? should they be denied that right because they cannot do it for themselves?
HonestJohn, what is right?
My right, and your right, are most likely two different things, as are my right from Anbuend's, or Gareth's, or Ian's, these sort of values can't easily be made universal, or even majority.
The government here does little BUT tread on peoples toes, bunch of self interested snakes that care nothing for the people from the picosecond they run out of money to line the politician's pockets with.
I like your threads wondering1!!
Euthanisia - no - shouldn't be necessary given the the ability to medicate and treat with modern medications.
In answer to the point about someone judged incompetent to change their mind and thus live:
When someone is judged incompetent and unable to decide, the bias should be towards life. Really simple.
Suicide in nearly all contexts is a sign of mental illness rather than rational thought, the only time it becomes rational is in the context of dying anyway. For myself though the only time I would wish to be unplugged from life support would be with a cryonics standby team waiting and ready.
Aye tis true, maybe it's older age or something but..he talks about the most depressing concepts so cheerfully
I don't understand it lol.
Maybe it's AS, maybe it's him..either way it annoys me, lol.
If someone had a terrible degenerative disease. I think that euthanasia, assisted suicide, is generally acceptable.
Thoughts?
I believe euthanasia is a slippery slope - that you don't want to head down.
Ideally, palliative care should be provided for all who require it and assisted suicide available for those for whom palliative care is insufficient.
Effective palliative care should never be insufficient.
This is a bit off-topic, but this is an actual conversation from my school:
"I'm bored. Someone raise a controversial topic."
"So, Sean; what do you think of euthanasia?"
"I think they should get the same education as the rest of us."
On-topic, I don't believe in suicide of any form for anything short of brain-death (or permanent vegetation), at which point I think you should just unplug them as they are dead anyway. There is always hope.
Wha-Bum! 
Very good reply at your school, there mate.
Important points there. I'm sure that those who are used to always being able to look after themselves would suffer a lot at the idea that they are stuck in bed, not being able to get around any more.
There is also the issue of being burdened with unnecessary life-prolonging treatments. While I think it is cruel to starve people and not give them sufficient hydration, they should be able to refuse heroic efforts to keep them alive when the quality of life is going to be nil or in the negative.
No matter how good palliative care is, there will always be a small group of people for whom death is preferable. That is why I referred to existential as opposed to physical suffering. Experience in Oregon and the Netherlands has shown that there will always be some for whom death is preferable. Research has shown that these people share certain personality traits, ie, controlling and independent.
In Oregon and the Netherlands two third of those who discuss assisted suicide with doctors actually die of natural causes, but they do so with the security of mind that comes from knowing that assisted suicide is available should they feel their suffering has become unbearable. For them it is a kind of insurance policy. The remaining third are those whose suffering is unbearable, usually not because of pain, but rather the loss of independence and dignity.
Oh - apologies - I misintepreted your post.