LOLoad. I should know that. i LOVE vermont!!!!

In God we trust

To me, it is very different. Your uncle can decide to stop the treatment and death will happen naturally. With doctor assisted suicide, death will not happen naturally.

Neo, I have I know what you are are going through with your uncle. My dad had a long fight with cancer and my mother with lung disease.

And this whole time I thought this was a thread about Dr Death Steve Williams the wrestler...

Naturally and painfully vs. unnaturally and humane.

And his tag team partner, the late Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy

versus Leapin' Larry Shane and the Mighty Sheik

I say that we not only prosecute any "doctor" who assists with a "suicide" but that we also prosecute those who have assisted with their own suicide. They need to deal with their own pain, lack of diginty, self humiliation, and incurble sickness just like the lord intended, or how else will they gain the strength to enter the gates of heaven?

There should be no special favors, and all those equally responsible should be treated so by the law equally. Whether you assisted with, or actively particpated in the suicide should make no difference in the eyes of justice.

...and if they succeeded??

That is just it....if we are are prosecuting the doctor for a successful suicide, I would imagine we would have to prosecute the deceased too for ignoring nature's law!

It's only ethical.

My thoughts exactly. If someone wants to commit suicide, they will do it - with Dr's help or without. Why not make it humane?

I believe that one of the reasons that assisted suicide is railed against is that we, as a society, should value human life and there is that old slippery slope argument as to whether doctors will start "Assisting" suicides when there is potential for recovery, where the person may be in such a state that they truly cannot make a reasonable decision, etc.

Let me further state, though, that I never agreed that suicide be illegal. It's your life, and you can take it if you want as you are the one who will have to answer to God.

I can see it now...

Prosecutor - "Witness, do you see the defendant in the courtroom?"

Witness - "Yes"

P - "Would you please point him out"

W - "Yes, he's the dead guy in the coffin leaning against the defense table."

And that is just it for many...either they feel they do not answer to God, of have already made peace with the choice.

It is not a position that can be used as justification to not allow the practice. This is where we have to be reminded of the separation of church and state, and the law has to be written on as a reflection of the freedom of one from the state. Not that as the state trying to base the law on the individual answering to God.

Admittingly, it is a line that is easy to blur. And for many of us, it is hard to take God out of our reasoning, but it is something that we as a country tend to do too often...set laws for the man with no God, with the thoughts of God in the back of our mind for them.

I want to go on record that I believe a person should be able to choose when to end treatment.

But this whole church/state argument in this context baffles me.

We have laws that say it is a crime to committ murder. That law's genesis comes from many religious beliefs, including the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments.

By having a law that says it is illegal to commit murder, have we merged church and state?

Is it murder????

Thanks straw, you opened the gates, I'm standing back to see what everyone says about this

quote]if people who opposed assisted suicide based their belief on a Platonic (as in Greek philospher Plato) that all life has value and should be preserved at all cost, would you hold that belief in the same contempt?[/quote]
2 points: my issue is about self-determination here. second, how many of the people who feel this way also support the death penalty?

please try to explain this correlation.

without the treatment, the person would've died long ago. if a person is able to forgo medical treatment or choose to have it, why can't they choose when to end it?

you mean those people who also favor the DP? at any rate, the world and medicine has changed quite a bit from plato's time.


i'd love to see this study.

I don't think so. Most any law is going to have a begining in some klnd of morality. MOST morality is going to have it's begining in SOME religion. The government and the people pretty much are able to choose what laws they want to inact, regardless of where the law may have had it's roots.

I think, in this case, for merging of church and state to be seen, all of the 10 commandments would have to be adopted and for biblical reasons. Here they are. Obviously that hasn't happened.

As Recorded in Deuteronomy 5:6-22 (NIV) they are:
"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

1. "You shall have no other gods before Me.

2. "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [ generations] of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

3. "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name.

4. "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

5. "Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

6. "You shall not murder.
7. "You shall not commit adultery.
8. "You shall not steal.
9. "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
10."You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house or land, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

These are the commandments the LORD proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and He added nothing more. Then He wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me (Moses).

(Side bar: remember in History of the World part 1, Moses had fifteen commandments (on three tablets), and then dropped one of the tablets, so there were only ten left... )

I love that movie!!

yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no, no, YES, no, no, YES!!!!

ROFLOAD! Queen Nympho...

Did someone say nympho?