Thread: Euthanasia... yay or nay?

I voted yes. If i want to end my life , it should be up to me to make that decision. I dont want to be a vegetable hooked up to machines.

As for the death penalty , i think it should be used in certain situations. Take for instance the guy here who stabbed and beheaded a passenger on a greyhound bus. 40 people saw him do it and he even held the severed head to the window for everyone to see. There is no issue with this guy possibly being innocent and therefore i think putting this guy in prison for the rest of his life is just a waste of money and resources.

Yes...Come on now. It's my life. Or in the case of old parents that tell me how they want to die, or my wife. That poor Terry Schiavo... Bush should be ashamed of himself.. I love Jack Kevorkian. Did you know that he is an awesome Jazz piano player. He has a very ethereal and progressive album out on the great ECM label.

I voted yes. It is my life.
It is not the government's right to decide when my life should end.

That being said, I'm in favor of VOLUNTARY euthanasia.
If I'm already a vegetable, my family should have the right to decide, NOT THE GOVERNMENT.

As for the death penalty, in a case-by-case basis, there should be as few life sentences as possible.

Also, there should be no more of this painless execution crap, done behind closed doors.
I want every execution to be on every channel (including satellite and HD), and instead of injecting poison into their veins, inject ACID!

[YOUTUBE]zKoDOxrxVOY[/YOUTUBE]

YouTube - Soylent Green / Sol goes home

Sorry, embedding disabled. Great scene from Soylent Green.

Originally Posted by Gooner

Well, it is delightfully unanimous at the moment.
I'm just waiting if we'll find any of those peculiar folks that think euthanasia violates the sanctity of life or something like that, yet have no problems with the death penalty.

It's clear that most people support euthanasia in some cases. Where that line is drawn is a different matter. For the record, I think assisted suicide should also be legal in certain cases where the "victim" isn't terminally ill (thanks for reminding me, Dreyfuss).
I saw a documentary of a Swedish guy a while back. He was in a car accident and was paralyzed from the neck down, needed a respirator and couldn't speak anymore. He wasn't dying but eventually he wanted to die, and I think he had that right. So, he went to Switzerland with his family and got it done, years after the accident. I would want to have that option in his place as well.




As for the death penalty, I've posted my opinion about it before, so I'll keep it short this time. In addition to the facts that...
-a prisoner sentenced to death in the US (the only "advanced Western democracy" still doing it) costs more than sentencing him to life without the possibility of parole
-the death penalty does not deter crime
-is arbitrary (not only reserved to the most heinous crimes. Prisons are full of people doing time for murder, and a few murderers here and there get the big DP)
-and discriminates on the basis of socioeconomic status, race, and geography.

...I like this quote:



That said, I understand someone being pro-death penalty (I used to agree with those people back in the day). However, I don't understand someone being anti-euthanasia.
The arguments against it... they're kinda like the arguments against gay marriage imo. No merit. Not surprisingly, they're usually made by the same people too. Not naming names or anything...
*cough* conservative religious folks *cough*

Same thing applies to people who protest against abortion on the grounds of the sanctity of human life, but cheer for the death penalty.

I am not entirely sure how someone getting the death penalty cost more then life w/o parole unless that person getting the death row is staying on death penalty for 50+ years and if we are talking about retrials etc etc then mayhap they shoulnd't allow appeals unless that person can personally afford it *in dp cases*

I personally don't think anyone has the right to help someone else to die unless it is noted in a will of some sort or there is some possible way to prove that person did not want to live in a certain state of life.

So yes its fine if THAT PERSON has good enough reason such as living in a veggietated state & that same person had it documented as well.

This would imo stop alot of planned out murders of spouses & such.

Suicide I don't believe in at all so if someone wants it either do it the old fashion way or do it in another country.

I am for the death penalty because some people just do not deserve to live.

The death penalty was never truely going to deter crime but what would help deter criminals is doing exactly what prisons were actually meant for in the first damn place & thats rehablilation.

Only true prisons that offer schooling or traning in a trade is private prison & thats rare anymore.

Federal prisons even offer certain inmates that have spent x amount of thier lifes locked up disablilty, LOL frigging disability to someone who has not earned the right to have it, just because they can't read or write & crap like that & thats because the prisons didn't offer it to them.

It should be legal, we give the government too much power and too much say so over our lives, it's ridiculous. If you want to end your life, that's your business and no one else.

Your country is also progressive, and politics arent dominated by the church and whatnot, swaying the people away from the right thing to do simply because they spin verses to disallow certain things.

Although I'm not personally a fan of suicide, I say if someone wants to end their life the choice is ultimately theirs.While I support Assisted Suicide, I do not believe that any average Joe who's had a rough life should be allowed to stroll into a doctor's office and clock out, but I do feel that people suffering slow and agonizing terminal illnesses should be allowed the option of having their ascension into the world to come eased.

When it comes to the death penalty, I don't believe in it. We do not have the right to take the life of another and thus capital punishment should not be allowed. At the end of everything only HE will decide the punishment, not us. Along with the fact that I feel murder is wrong,I feel solitary confinement is a much more severe punishment. Why free the spirit of the beast when you can confine it untill the end of its days and break it completely??? I can't think of who it was but I remember there was some serial killer who's trial was so drawn out that it was numerous years before his final sentence. He was held in solitary confinement untill his final hearing and during that time he literally started to go crazy. He had constant anxiety from the guilt of his crimes and experienced extreme hallucination's, when he finally went to trial he was literally begging for death...

Originally Posted by Gooner

Yes, but those people at least have the "that fetus didn't murder nobody"-argument.
But sanctity of life, gimme a break. Like a wise man once said, we're a virus with shoes.



I'm not sure I follow you.
Maybe they shouldn't allow appeals in death penalty cases if the defendant can't afford it... that's just wrong.

But yes, the majority of the costs come at trials.
I quote: Prosecuting a death penalty case is extremely expensive for a state and drains money that could be used for education and social programs. Capital punishment costs more than sentencing a prisoner to life without parole. The most comprehensive death penalty study in the country found that the death penalty cost North Carolina $2.16 million more per execution over the costs of sentencing murderers to life imprisonment. The majority of these costs occur at the trial level. In its review of death penalty expenses, the State of Kansas concluded that capital cases are 70% more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases, including the costs of incarceration.

Now, everyone can offer their opinions on how this should be changed so that it wouldn't be more expensive (not allowing appeals certainly shouldn't be the way), but that's the way it is in the US right now. More expensive. I'm sure handing out death penalties in say, North Korea or Iran, is much much cheaper however.



I'm with you on focusing more on rehabilitation.

I don't consider the vegetable-situation that big of a deal. I pretty much agree with how they're dealing with that issue right now.
But how do you feel about someone who's conscious and can still speak for himself... should that person be allowed access to assisted suicide (because he can't do it himself)?

It's weird how the majority of people are in favor of legalizing something, yet it is still illegal. For example, in my country the numbers are at about 76% (concerning euthanasia for terminally ill people).

See the difference I see with "pulling the plug* on a veggitated person is different then someone who is whellchair bound but still can speak and such.

The difference is that no one in a veggitated state that I know of has ever recovered from this & imo when the brains dead your dead were as someone that can still speak & interact with people, basically the brain still works, is a person that should live.

I don't believe in suicide & if ever there was a time I would have the closest would be when my daughter died two days before she was due to be born & even then I wouldn't consider it.

For me if you can think then you can live.

As for the appeals, to me theres to much legal bs sometimes. Allowing a known murderer to live based on 30 years of appeals is just wrong, it needs to be more like texas *god I can't believe im saying this* texas I think the average a person stays on death row is like 9 years which in most cases is long enough.

In the fast picture of cost over dp *death penalty* & lwop *life without parole* it does look like the lwop is cheaper but take into consideration that a person that is sentenced to lwop has the exact same rights as a person on dp which means they get just as many appeals & can rack up just as much if not more legal bills then a person on dp.

The average cost of a prison cell is around 35k a year per prisoner were as a max securtiy prison is around 75k a person a year.

With dp those prisoners are in max security prisons an average of 15 years or so unless they have money & can drag it out longer with thier own attorneys but then you have to cut out some of the tax payers money from that because the prisoner is paying his own part.

With lwop prisoners they can be in either max security prison or a standard prison based on what thier crime was. Most I believe go to a max security prison.

Now based on this you have 75k times 15 years average which = about 1.1 mil or so & does not include legal fees or medical expenses vs a lwop who averages 35-40 years in prison & lets just 1/2 the sentence as in saying that 1/2 the prisoners are in a standard prison at a rate of 35k & the other 1/2 is in a max prison at 75k.

20 years @ 35k= 70000 & 20 years at a max prison at 75k= 1.5 mil and of course this isnt including legal fees or medical expenses.

70000+1.5 mil = 1570000

I would say that the lwop is more expensive.

Also the length of time prisoners are on death row is starting to lower which means its a fast train to shockerville which in turn =s even less money.

Another thing to think about is that a person with lwop is put into general population & therefore there is more likely the chance of getting shanked and such which means more trips to the medical facilitys were as death row immates are in solitarty confinement from all other persons.

There are plenty of reports out there showing this number & that number & most of it is made up crap by those that are against the death penalty.

I did some research and found that its next to impossible to truely calculate the actual cost in dp vs lwop but here is a statement made by some people a little more into the stats then myself.

"Many opponents present, as fact, that the cost of the death penalty is so expensive (at least $2 million per case?), that we must choose life without parole ('LWOP') at a cost of $1 million for 50 years. Predictably, these pronouncements may be entirely false. JFA estimates that LWOP cases will cost $1.2 million - $3.6 million more than equivalent death penalty cases.

There is no question that the up front costs of the death penalty are significantly higher than for equivalent LWOP cases. There also appears to be no question that, over time, equivalent LWOP cases are much more expensive... than death penalty cases. Opponents ludicrously claim that the death penalty costs, over time, 3-10 times more than LWOP."

And another:
"[The] cost is not inherent in the [death] penalty, but imposed by judges. It is not cheaper to keep a criminal confined, because most of the time he will appeal just as much causing as many costs as a convict under death sentence. Being alive and having nothing better to do, he will spend his time in prison conceiving of ever-new habeas corpus petitions, which being unlimited, in effect cannot be rejected as res judicata. The cost is higher."

And my favorite:

"Firing squad... You want cheap execution? There you go. If the first shot doesn't do it, the second will. And what does a couple rifle cartridges cost? $1.00?"

Originally Posted by LionHeartWarchild

Although I'm not personally a fan of suicide, I say if someone wants to end their life the choice is ultimately theirs.While I support Assisted Suicide, I do not believe that any average Joe who's had a rough life should be allowed to stroll into a doctor's office and clock out, but I do feel that people suffering slow and agonizing terminal illnesses should be allowed the option of having their ascension into the world to come eased.

When it comes to the death penalty, I don't believe in it. We do not have the right to take the life of another and thus capital punishment should not be allowed. At the end of everything only HE will decide the punishment, not us. Along with the fact that I feel murder is wrong,I feel solitary confinement is a much more severe punishment. Why free the spirit of the beast when you can confine it untill the end of its days and break it completely??? I can't think of who it was but I remember there was some serial killer who's trial was so drawn out that it was numerous years before his final sentence. He was held in solitary confinement untill his final hearing and during that time he literally started to go crazy. He had constant anxiety from the guilt of his crimes and experienced extreme hallucination's, when he finally went to trial he was literally begging for death...

Most serial killers are already crazy.

I wont go all bibical and crap but isnt there a saying in the bible *an eye for an eye*?

Most people I met in the times I was locked up are people that can care less if they ever get let go.

Prison is all they know & they feel safer there then in the outside, like my uncle, he has spent 40 years of his life off & on in prison and purposly commits crimes to go back because he cant handle the real world.

Most those guys you wont break thier spirits because they lost that spirit along time ago.