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Much as I love my dogs, I see a huge difference between our species treatment of other species, and how we treat each other.

Our species (me!) regularly gasses large numbers of bugs for our own comfort. When humans do that to each other, it's the Holocaust. When we do it to bugs, it's making the patio safe for grilling meat and drinking margaritas. Big difference.

Our species regularly slaughters, kills, terminates, and murders millions of head of cattle every year. When we do that to our own species, it's cannibalism. When we do it to other species, it's ranching. Big difference.

Our species regularly goes out and kills other species for the sheer fun of it. When we do that to each other, it's called psychotic murder. When we do it to other species, it's called trophy hunting. Big difference.

I've watched as a good friend shot his horse between the eyes to put him out of his misery. I've removed a fish floundering belly up in his (her?) fishbowl to put (it?) out of it's misery. And yes, I've held many of my dogs as the vet injected a nerve toxin to put them out of their misery. When we do it to our pets we call it being compassionate. When we do it to each other it is called euthanasia. When medical professionals do it in a medical setting they are sometimes charged with murder. There are laws regarding euthanasia in most societies. As far as I know there are no laws regarding "putting the dog down". Big difference.

As Servumtuum alluded to in an earlier post on this thread, euthanasia is a moral issue fraught with emotion and history. I maintain that there is a huge difference between pulling the plug on an unconscious human vegetable and allowing nature to then run it's course, (the Schiavo case in Florida), and assisting a conscious, communicating, aware human being to commit suicide, (Dr. Kevorkian a few years ago). There are no laws that state that you must use every medical tool available to stave off the inevitability of death. There are lots of laws regarding the purposeful taking of a human life, whether by murder, euthanasia, or suicide.

I see your point Meteor. However, there's a big difference between a physician carrying out euthanasia vs. facilitating the ability of a patient to do so himself at a time/place of his own choosing. I think one could easily make the argument that the patient would probably do it anyway and that the physician's participation in such cases is limited to allowing a patient to take his own life in a painless and dignified way. Much more so than, well, the alternatives.

You mentioned the difference between how we see ourselves in relation to other species. Implicit in your example of gassing thousands of bugs for the sake of convenience is the idea that human life is more important/valuable than lower life forms. The flip side of your argument is that if one sees human life as more valuable than that of lower life forms, shouldn't humans facing terminal illnesses be entitled to the choice of a death at least as painless and dignified as those we give our pets?

Yusuf; I understand and somewhat agree with your views. To clarify my point: In my original post I addressed my frustration with the American inability to allow nature to take it's course and permit people to die when that moment arrives. I was primarily referring to the unconscious, incontinent, emaciated, dehydrated, husk of a person lying in a sterile white hospital bed surrounded by blinking and beeping life support machines. That person is clearly no longer enjoying life, will never again contribute to society, is costing society huge amounts of resources which could be better used to support those who are not terminal, and is merely prolonging the anguish of those loved ones who are unable to confront the obvious. As far as I know there are no laws or restrictions (in the USA or elsewhere) that prohibit a terminal patient from dying.

On the other hand, all societies have injuctions against suicide, just as they do against incest, pedophilia, and murder. Whether the prohibitions on suicide are rational or not is beyond the scope of my original post. The fact is that for millenia prohibitions on suicide for one's own sake has been a basic precept of human society. There are exceptions, of course. The Japanese and Koreans have condoned suicide as atonement for loss of honor and crimes against society. The Arabic world has condoned suicide as a means of accomplishing a political goal. Buddhists have long incinerated themselves in the street to protest injustice. However, all of these suicides are done in order to further a societal goal, not to relieve oneself of pain.

Most of the world allows their terminally ill to die naturally. They do their best to alleviate the painful symptoms of death, but do not prolong death unecessarily as we do here in the US. For the US to change and accept natural death does not require a re-wiring of the human or societal mentality. However, changing our mores regarding suicide would be a monumental undertaking not just here, but across the planet. While there may be valid reasons for allowing suicide, I feel that the human psyche is a long way from accepting that. It is a bridge that we may eventually come to, but we've got a long road to travel before we get there.

You make some good points Meteor. However I'd contend that at it's core, this is a matter of individual freedom. IMHO society has no right to deprive a terminally ill patient of the one thing he can still control, i.e. the terms of his own death. Doing so is the only way one can cheat death and to take that away from someone is spiteful and selfish on the part of society.

Personally, I'd probably stick around until the bitter end. However I know very well that constant agony and suffering can change one's outlook on that. Being unable to breath is particularly agonizing and terrorizing for patients. If it ever came to that for me, I'd like the ability to do what I felt I needed to do without burdening my family or others with a gruesome discovery or having to worry that I might botch the job.

I understand that many disagree based on religious and moral grounds. Furtherore I can also appreciate the ethical dilemmas it poses for many in the medical community. Nonetheless I think this choice is a fundamental human right that we're denying the terminally ill.

No one cheats death. Ever. Under any circumstances.

And controlling the terms of one's own death should work both ways - whether prolonging it or shortening it.

But there is no cheating it.

There are a number of controversial issues regarding "individual freedom", one of them being abortion. We have collectively decided that at a certain point a woman loses the right to "individual freedom", and she essentially becomes a breeding cow subject to the laws of the state. A woman loses the "individual freedom" to decide whether to continue her pregnancy to delivery. How are the injunctions against abortion and those against suicide different?

As I understand the issue, those who oppose abortion have a position that describes the developing fetus as a "person" in the sense of an autonomous individual human being and therefore subject to and, from their perspective, protected by the laws of the state-in this case, laws proscribing the taking of the life of another human being. In this view the individual freedom of the "fetus-as-person" would be involved due to the lack of individual choice. Conversely, the views of many, described as "pro-choice" do not agree with the perspective of the developing fetus as an autonomous individual thus placing the individual rights of the woman as the deciding factor.

Suicide is a volitional choice made by an autonomous individual human being. I believe that the injunctions against suicide stem from more than one perspective. One, there is a theological position which believes that one's life being "God given" is not a personal possession but a divine gift, the refusal of which-such as via suicide-constitutes a moral breach, or sin. A similar view is non-religious but similar, holding life itself as sacred with a similar rationale for proscribing suicide. Yet another is that, as a member of a society, suicide constitutes a "breach-of-contract" with the group-family, social group, state, whatever. A final one is actually motivated by a concern on the part of one of the aforementioned groups as to the welfare-in this case meaning mental and emotional state-of the individual. All of the above seem to me to have one thing in common-the view that suicide is perceived as an act of "selfishness"-duty to God, life, family, society, the world...etc. comes first.

As a postscript, while digging around for information on this thread topic I discovered that as of 2007, the number of persons on death row who died from suicide exceeded the number actually executed. Interesting irony.

Yusuf06 said that suicide should be a matter of individual freedom. My counter-point, perhaps weakly explained, was that society regularly restricts and deprives individuals of their individual freedoms. I used the mother's right to an abortion as an example. The reasons that we restrict those rights is irrelevant. The fact is, we as a society condone restricting the individual rights and freedoms of the pregnant female.

We also restrict the individual freedom to drive 100 MPH in a 25 MPH school zone. We restrict the individual right and freedom to not pay taxes. We restrict the individual right and freedom to terminate the life of someone you disagree with. We restrict the right for you to drive your motorcycle without your helmet on. The federal, state, and local laws are overflowing with restrictions to individual rights and freedoms. The right to commit suicide is just one of them.

Ok, Meteor, the error was mine. After re-reading your and Yusof06's posts I had incorrectly inferred the perspective you were using. Yusof is apparently stating his disagreement with current societal views and policy toward suicide and you were coming at it from the perspective of society's right-or, perhaps, consensually-given ability to place restrictions on individual action. In the debate over the "right" of the individual regarding suicide what I'm sensing is a difference in the use of the word "right"-in Yusof06's case "right" here is used in a moral judgment sense and your use, if I'm correct, equates "right" with "ability"-"ability" being again a consent-driven societal acceptance of enforcable restriction on behavior.

I think you've generalized a bit too much. I was referring to a very strictly defined case-terminally ill patients. While I don't have a huge problem with abortion, I think it's something of a stretch to compare a terminally ill person trying to have a dignified, less painful death with a woman terminating the life of another "person" (assuming you consider a fetus as such).

I hold life as sacred as any of you do. That's why I have such strong feelings about the right of an individual facing a terminal illness to end life on their own terms and in a way that is dignified and as painless as possible.

With regard to society's need to restrict individual liberties, in general "free" countries only restrict individual rights as a last resort to protect the greater good of society at-large. I think most or all of us would be hard pressed to explain how society at-large is damaged in any concrete way when an individual decides to take his/her own life due to the overwhelming pain/disability of a terminal illness.

You're right. I probably should have said cheat the disease rather than death.

As for prolonging life, one should have that right as well-within reason. That is, one should be allowed to fight as long as possible up to the point where, in the opinion of a medical ethics panel, futile care is being delivered.

how about the person who missed the France flight that went down in the Atlantic just to die in a car accident a few days later?

First thing I thought was "it was destined for that person to die" kind of like a final destination movie.

I mentioned the same thing to my wife. Wild.