by Jerica Collins

Created on: April 25, 2007   Last Updated: April 30, 2007

Euthanasia is a heated topic as there are many opinions for and against it. Should we allow a terminally ill individual to lethally inject themselves? One side says we should allow it, I mean you wouldn't want to die a painful death, right? But on the other side we say how can we allow people to kill themselves? What if they could have somehow recovered?

The strongest argument against human euthanasia is the fact that if we are allowing terminally ill patients to lethally inject themselves why won't we allow very depressed patients to end their lives. They also can feel physical pain from it and some may never get out of this depressive state. Where do we draw the line? How can we say this group of people can kill themselves, but not this other group? What about those individuals that have nothing to live for and constantly attempt suicide? Should we not allow them (who may never fully recover either) to kill themselves but those who will be dying soon anyway can?

You have to take into account that even some "terminally ill" patients do recover when it was never expected. Some go through such pain and then finally there is a breakthrough and they live years longer than expected. Its the same with depressed individuals. Sometimes they never really recover, sometimes they finally see through the depression and live normal lives.

There is also the fact that human lives are valuable, that each person has family (in most cases at least) or at least someone who cares about them. Now certainly we don't want to see our loved ones suffer, but if it were me suffering I'd have to say I'd rather try and live out my life to its fullest rather than kill myself. My belief is that we are not supposed to kill ourselves, maybe the suffering will end and you can live out a normal life. Maybe even through the suffering you will accomplish something that never would have been done other wise. Maybe someone will see that suffering and be inspired by your will to live and live life to its fullest. I may have never had long term pain, but this is the way I see it and believe that if I was in that situation I would choose to live.

I also believe that we should not be helping others kill themselves for any reason. There are so many restrictions we'd have to set for who is allowed to kill themselves and who isn't. It could end up turning into a lot more than just those in pain killing themselves. After all what about those who have horrific memories that they can't seem to live with and it affects their lives every single day. Should we not offer this to them? They're going to have a longer life than the terminally ill patient (more than likely) yet they have to continue suffering with these memories that won't go away? We must consider everything when thinking about allowing something like this. It is more than just letting people end their suffering.

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