Should old people be helped to die, if that is what they wish? [ENDS 13/06/2010]

Should old people be helped to die, if that is what they wish?

ENDS: 13/06/2010

Old age can bring a lot of problems and complications for old folks such as numerous diseases ranging in severity. Some more severe ones include Alzheimer's disease and the list can go on and on. Such diseases can often bring the patient or person intolerable pain, leave them as both mental and physical invalids and often spending the majority of their days in a hospital ward. Countries such as the Netherlands have specialized hospitals to allow the person to die at their will, whilst the UK introduced a 'Mental Capacity Act' that gives legal force to "living wills" so patients can appoint an attorney to inform doctors when their food and water should be removed, in effect leaving them to die. Also, some wish to do this as they view their condition a burden on their family and don't want to see anymore suffering.

Others completely dismiss this saying no matter in what state or condition a person may be in, it is still a living organism and is immoral to let them die. Some say that with the right care people can lead quite a good quality life late into diseases such as dementia etc. and killing ones self will send out a bad message to others who might not want to fight on anymore. Anyone's life is precious and should be saves to the last moment, it is more from the moral standpoint, with some viewing the act of killing people off in such a way as being "barbaric".

Anyway, this leads on to the question of this week's debate that is should old people be helped to die, if that is what they wish? You can take any stance and provide various views and pieces of evidence.

If they'd like to finish their time as human etc, and they might have got some problems as in not being able to look after their self on their own then if they really want to die, then I think we should help them. Give them an injection or something a calm death. They shouldn't have to make themselves commit suicide or anything.
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If they are in pain then yes. They shouldn't suffer.

If they're in pain, yes. I've never understood the argument against it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Caution

If they're in pain, yes. I've never understood the argument against it.

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Agreed. Their last moments on Earth should be happy ones. I will continue but on iPod :P.

On the one hand, I think they should. If they're elderly they have no future ahead of them really, and not much of a life to live for - so if they choose to end their life then that's up to them. I agree with Wiki, they should always be given some sort of injection or another calm and painless death.

On the other hand, if they have some sort of disease or a mental illness, they shouldn't be allowed to die, because they're probably going through a stage of being distraught and angry, and they probably haven't thought it through and about the consequences that their death will have on them, their family, etc.

Overall, yes I do think they should be allowed to be helped to die. If that's their choice then people should respect that and give them their wishes. However, if they aren't completely sure or their family and loved ones don't agree with their choices, I don't think they should be killed because as I said, they probably haven't thought the whole situation through.

When you think about it, how inconsiderate is it to deny a person the right to end their own life? Seems like a no brainer if it's what they really want.

If they go through a series of interviews depicting very valid reasons. Then i should think why not.

well if u get caught its counted as attemped suicide and you can get arrested

if it's very serious, if they're in pain