Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[kaokao]

Hello! Nice to meet you. I'm a Japanese student. Today, I had a English communication class. We discuss euthanasia.
If you become a terrible disease and doctor told you not to recover, whatyou would do?
Can you allow euthanasia? yes or no.

[coffeedecafe]

your question is about 'youth in asia'? youth in asia should be allowed to live simple and enjoyable lives of play, and taught the pleasure of working with their parents and friends on activity that is worth doing , and worth doing right. just sharing even boring jobs can make them fun. planting rice is never fun, yet a song is written about it!
no person should ever be called a disease. a person is so much more than a physical body. one of the earliest presidents of the united states received a letter in his old age, asking about his health. his reply was something like: 'i, sir, am doing fine. this old body i live in is falling apart, and i shall soon move to a better one, but the real me is getting better and better.'[ this is a paraphrase, not a quote].
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[river1974]

This question is really hard to answer. Frankly, I have no idea which parts of the world allow legal euthanasia. So far euthanasia is still illegal here in Taiwan. Assume that one of my close relatives or friends suffers from an incurable disease, and the doctor annouces that he only has few days to live with the help of medical devices, what would I do? I certainly will ask the doctor to keep him alive as much as possible because I don't want to lose him. But if he is conscious and decides to end up his life by the way of euthanasia, I guess I would agree. Everyone has free will for making decisions. If he could not bear all these pain and torture anymore, why not respecting his own choice?

[LucentShade]

I would allow euthanasia, for purely economic reasons. Let's face it, it's expensive to be terminally ill in this day and age. Even if you have an incurable disease, doctors are all too happy to drag your life out as long as they can. After all, every day that you're on their fancy life support machines, and taking their premium drugs and painkillers means more $$$ for them and the hospital. So, if I was in this situation, I would say all the final goodbyes, and then gracefully step out of this world before my loved ones get stuck with huge hospital bills along with the funeral.

[river1974]

I quite agree with you. If I am the patient with terminal illness and have to survive with the aid of fancy life support machines as well as premium drugs and painkillers, I would rather say goodbye to this world! As a chinese, I believe in reincarnation. I believe that one is just leaving this world temporarily when he passes away, and soon he will be back again! For economic reasons, I don't want money to be spending on those life-maintaining things. I would rather leave money to my loved ones to give them a better life.

[coffeedecafe]

if a doctor told me not to recover, i would stop going to him while still alive. i might get better just to prove him wrong! not all medicine has to be expensive,and all people do not have a chance to go to rich hospitals. i do not think refusing treatment or life support systems is euthenasia. purposely taking poison or some other means is euthenasia. someone doing the same to you because they say they know it is what you want is euthenasia. it also can be a covenience murder if someone loves your money more than they love you...
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