On Euthanasia - by Richard Veale

I disagree with all of J. Gay-Williams's arguments in that I believe he reads too much into nature and in doing so almost manages to contradict himself. For instance, he assumes humans are conscious through the reason of their nature and intention. I have no idea what that means. He also seems to argue that life is an end in and of itself and so dying goes against that, and is a poke at human dignity. But it seems to me dignity exists in such *choice* as being able to end one's life or the life of another. As some of the later authors argue, we cannot really say that we can take any life if we think it's suffering because then some psycho could go around killing everyone, saying that they are suffering. So, there must be some other rule set up that allows euthanasia to take place, one of which must be the permission of the person himself... It would be sad, though, if doctors decided to kill someone who might recover and grow from the experience. Despite these arguments against Gay-Williams, I do agree with his explanation of euthanasia and PAS.

Assisted Suicide - by Martha Nielsen

As far as assisted suicide is concerned, I do believe that there is a proper way to go around it so as to make it both morally and legally permissible. The Dutch law allowing for PAS and the necessary conditions passed in 2000 are, I believe, a good standard. Now when taking into consideration the assisted suicide of the Latimer case I am more one to agree with the advocates for the disabled. While it may be true that in relation to anyone other than his daughter, Latimer was not a threat, I still believe he did something morally wrong. It’s true that his daughter was in massive amounts of pain and that her quality of life was very low, that was only for the moment. Latimer chose a permanent solution for a possibly, temporary problem. The following surgeries that the Latimer girl was waiting for could have done much to ease both the pain and the severity of her disability. The amount of uncertainty associated with the outcome of the disease and the number of options still available to the family is a main reason as to why Latimer should not have acted so quickly. I have no doubt that he believed that what he was doing was right, however he removed from his daughter her right to have an open future. Albeit it may have not been the same kind of future that he had been accustomed to growing up but it was more of a future than not having one. Sadly, the death of the young Latimer girl was nothing more than the uneducated and irrational, although well natured, actions of a suffering father.