Earl of Bronze

Quite easily Russ. Anyone who wants to pre-book (can't think of a better way to describe it right now) their assisted suicide would speak to a panel of experts. The experts would have access to the applicants medical records, and any other relevant information. They would listen, advise and help the applicant understand the process.... If everything seemed cosher, then the applicant would be free to have the assisted suicide take place at a time of their choosing. That would mean that tragic cases of people being kept alive by machines, for years on end without their loved ones being able to have closure, on what many would consider an already dead loved one would stop.... There is nothing moral, or ethical about forced treatment for brain-dead or severely brain-damaged individuals. Keeping people alive, when they may well prefer to be assisted to die given the choice is by far the more ethical and moral thing to do....

The fact that the arguments against legalising assisted suicide are those warning of the baser urges for personal gain from family. I'm more inclined to think that it's a deep seated religious dogma that makes people object to assisted suicide, or living wills that must be legally enforced. If religious people believe that all human life is sacred, and that suffering is good for the soul, then thats fine. But I'd prefer it if the religious objectors where more honest, and kept their beliefs to themselves and stopped projecting onto others. Personally I accepted my mortality many years ago, and as such don't particularly fear death. I know that most likely dying will suck ass in a big way, but I'd rather have to option of being helped out, rather than being forced to lie in a bed, crapping into a bag, and being fed through a tube in my nose.... Rather a bit of dignity, than a pointless, pityful existance because someone else objects to a fellow human dying at a time of their own choosing....