Laws Against Suicide Are Based on Religious Taboos
There is no rational basis upon which the government can properly prevent any individual from choosing to end his own life. Laws banning physician-assisted suicide are supported primarily by religious conservatives who believe that human life is a gift from God, who put us here on earth to carry out His will. They believe that one who "plays God" by causing his own death, or assisting in the death of another, insults his Maker and invites eternal damnation, not to mention divine retribution against the decadent society that permits such sinful behavior.
If a religious conservative contracts a terminal disease, he has a legal right to regard his own God's will as paramount, and to instruct his doctor to stand by and let him suffer, just as long as his body and mind can endure the agony, until the last bitter paroxysm carries him to the grave. But conservatives have no right to force such mindless, medieval misery upon doctors and patients who refuse to regard their precious lives as playthings of a cruel God. The American principle of church-state separation forbids it.
Rational, secular state legislators should proceed without delay--and without taking account of mystical taboos--to recognize and protect an individual’s right to commit suicide with the voluntary assistance of a doctor.
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Conservatives. Always trying to wheedle their personal, religious-based morals into legislature. When will they learn.
Their argument against playing God doesn’t make sense, or else it backfires, because who’s to say what “playing God” is? Couldn’t one argue that keeping a body alive sheerly with modern medicine and technology is playing God? So keeping a terminally ill patient, or a person in a vegetative state, alive is just as much playing God as killing the patient is.
I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that religion should not play a part in society concerning those who do not share the same beliefs. It is perfectly acceptable for a religious conservative to choose to continue a life of illness, regardless of the amount of pain and suffering they must endure, in order to fulfill their duties to their God. However, we all need to realize that not all of us share the same beliefs, and the ideas of one religious group should not have the right to let their beliefs dictate what others do. Choosing to end one's own life because they are terminally ill, in pain, and unable to enjoy the life they are living, is the person's choice, and theirs alone; they are not harming anyone else by choosing to die. Critics of this may argue that they are causing emotional suffering for their loved ones when they choose to end their own life, but watching a loved one live a life of pain and suffering is often equally, if not more painful, than watching them pass away in peace. The feelings of people with both opinions as to which of these scenarios is worse should be equally considered.