I work in the healthcare field and I sometimes see patients with terminal illnesses suffer with relentless pain, I would want the option of euthanasia if I was ever in that position, but I've been fortunate enough so far to have not have any life experiences to cause me to attempt or consider suicide.

Quite straightforward - why would anyone want to extend their life once they have had enough? I think anyone over the age of 75 should be able to end their own life in a painless and dignified way with medical assistance with no argument. For people younger than that, if they have a terminal disease or a life-limiting condition, I think they should have the option, too. Other people who want to end their lives should have to talk to someone about it first, to see if their lives could be improved in some way to enable them to go on longer, but if not, then why shouldn't they end their lives, too?

Suicide ought to be a right, it's your life--literally the only thing that is truly yours.

End it, keep it, do whatever you want with it.

There is nothing "disturbing" about it unless you're Old School and can't get away from the various religious taboos forbdding it (some edicts from the Catholic church were enacted simply to stop martyrs from killing themselves as a shortcut to Heaven--the Church feared it would lose all its followers).

I can see that the topic may make you uncomfortable, but there is nothing disturbing about it, merely stigma and your own bias.

I didn't think carefree was applicable to the replies at all. I've been a nurse for a long time. I've seen families force 90 year old loved ones into dialysis while they were in constant excruciating pain from incurable cancer, and weren't even in control of their bowels anymore. If my death is impending I sure don't want my family remembering my last days as I was angry, out of my head, in constant agony, laying in my own excrement, begging for death because "it's part of god's plan".

Now obviously that's different from a teenager shooting himself because his girlfriend broke up with him. If you are a mature adult and you can't even be trusted to make your own end of life decisions then what freedom do you really have?

I just got my Medical Cannabis Card yesterday-2 weeks till my consultation. As a 5 year cancer survivor have had pain issues. If the pain couldn't be controlled with weed and hemp products I would consider suicide, however it is managable right now and I am able to return to a normal life.

Dying in pain with no hope would cause me to end it. Otherwise I want to experience as much of my life as I can.
Dropping religion made life seem more wondrous for me. The random chance involved for the universe to form, the solar system and earth to come about, for life to begin, evolve and for me to be here is so much more fantastic than any creation myth.

Having attempted suicide when I was young (very stupid move for stupid reasons), and having considered it seriously several years ago, I don't feel I have the right to judge anyone. And while I hope I won't get to that point again, I obviously can't say for certain. My kids are what kept me from going through with it a few years ago. I didn't want to hurt them.

Why should that have you concerned? Contrary to your staement, I do not find life to be a painful, unpleasant experience.. I enjoy many things about my life and always have. But, if I reach the stage in which I am a burden on others and.or in constant pain, I WILL choose to end my life. That is my choice, and none of your concern. It would be senseless to hang onto life when in agony, and selfish to hang onto life while costing others eotionally and financially.

LIFE IS GRAND! Far from perfect, but grand!

I have no fear of death. I fear end of life living. When it comes time I will thank everybody and take care of it. No big deal. I do want to make sure my wife is not left alone in the end. I will wait for her or go with her. Who wants to just lay there looking at the walls while someone is changing your diaper and spoon feeding you. Yuck. I did what did in life to survive till the end. It's not a big deal..

Personally, I think the believer in general views this existence as torture, not the non-believer, unless of course their existence IS torturous. In one form or another, each of the major Western Religions focus the practitioner's attention in the afterlife, and minimize the earthly experience with subordination to theological authority, all while condemning the suicide act itself.

The State needs labor. The Church trains you to view labor as the only purpose in life, and suffering as the only reward. Anything that lessens or takes away from that is deemed a sin. It has been that way since the first of us crawled from the Anatolians and some of us figured out if you “paid” other people to dig holes or have sex your existence becomes very easy.

I really wish more people understood this, but usually they only get it after they've shattered themselves slaving away, are now "useless" in the eyes of the State, and, absent a healthy external structure that rewards a stable, healthy worldview, end the only existence they've ever had in sorrow and misery, wandering into a pretty building once a week to have all this dysfunctionality reinforced by listening to the descendant that lied to our ancestors feeding them the same line of crap. Where they’re told that suffering is somehow noble, and to want to advance one’s passing condemns you to eternal torment. Suffer here, suffer there, but if you’re here you can still support the con. Just as long as you’re suffering the Church and the State really doesn’t give a shit. You’re easier to control this way, and if you’re not killing yourselves willy-nilly you don’t throw off their forecasting and planning, lol.

Non-believers, absent this external authoritative control are more inclined to wring everything they can out of this existence, because they know this is all they get. Unfortunately, they are still subjugated by religious thought due to the codification of beliefs through secular law. If there was a Hell, we’d be damned if we do, damned if we don’t. But there isn’t a Hell, so people suffer needlessly.

As far as myself, I've been in real bad shape before. Even then, I fought to stay here, quite literally at times. I can't say I'd would or wouldn't choose euthanasia, as I've never been THAT bad. I've known people who have been. Euthanasia must be a legal option in our society, if and only if the decision is made in sound mind, like a DNR.

People who are rabidly against this are, once again, either too afraid to give up their Bronze Age scribbles or so woefully deluded and self-centered from a lifetime of unhealthy habits, mores, customs and beliefs they’re willing to impose that crap on others, and nothing will change how they feel until they themselves face death down. Of course then they're the whinest people you'd ever meet. Because they’re hypocrites. But we already knew that, huh?

My mother died of "bird facier's disese". She had pet canaries, which in the end killed her. Beasically it is an allergy to bird dander. It gets in teh lungs and causes irritation and scar tissue in the lungs air sacks and it gets hrder and harder to breath, kind of like asbestosis. So, my mohter over a period of almost 20 years slowly suffocated to death as her conditioned got worse and worse. That is a terrible way to die. Susectibility is genetically oriented, and if I ever got it I would nto wait until it killed me. Once the quality of life dropped to where I had nothign to look forward to, I'd end it.

I myself have had leukemia, which is painful. I endured that with no problems. That was actually much more endurable.

We are not an actual point of reference, for we lack a point of reference, and lack premise.

Was this not clear to you, or are you just making devilish impressionisms?

*endless pain and a terminal diagnosis

I think its a very precious escape hatch that you don't need to be afraid of. Suicide is really hard. Like. So hard. I tried a few times but I'm really bad at dying. Now I have a daughter and would NEVER. But when I was undiagnosed and sick I saw it as a solice and I needed that.

I'd be outta here already if it wheren't for these damned nine lives. Got 5 left

In theory I could have chosen what's behind door #3 (although I don't agree it's further along some continuum towards considering suicide now). But in practice I doubt I'd give rational suicide any serious consideration unless I had zero quality of life and minimal hope of improvement. "Things getting too hard" tends to come and go, pain and suffering, not so much ...

I love life too much, even with it's difficulties. Only if I was in endless pain or unable to care for myself would it even be a consideration.

No Vote... just commenting No Vote.

I have survived so much pain and misfortune already, it only made me stronger.

I think it is alot more complicated then the answers given.
Suicide is complex situation. Because no one just split second decides to kill themselves. Its something that is thought about and internally debated for days weeks months and years. It's never a rash split minute decision like people would like to think it is.
There needs to be better understanding of mental health issues and what people actually need for help.

You don't need to be concerned. It's none of your business. We don't need people telling us how to live.

Suicide is very cowardly- especially when it comes to thinking about the person's friends and family. Now if someone is all alone and has no that cares about them, that could be different.

Oh, hell no. Life can be what you make it.

Once I see the white room, white sheets and my white robe I indeed want out.