If you are sentenced to death should you have the right to choose the way you should die?
915529
How quick are people here to jump blindly to all kinds of conclusions about this.  Firstly, most people are forgetting that your question as us if WE were sentenced to death....perhaps some people here should try to get their head round that bit of the concept first before assuming that anyone should be sentenced to death.  \n\nThere have been a lot of miscarriages of justice - in the UK think of people who have been released years after being sentenced because they were wrongly imprisoned in the first place. You can't bring people back from the dead so there's a moral and ethical question people ought to ask themselves about whether the death penalty - is something that is right in the first place.  Thankfully in the UK we abolished it but there are plenty of other countries that still exercise this sentencing option.  \n\nWhen is it right to sentence someone to death, and when is it not?\n\nOf course this question has probably been prompted by the news that Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.  Even in the case of such a tyrant he did not act alone - he had people around him who supported him in his actions.  Yes some will have done it out of fear, but for everyone of those there will have been someone who did it with the same intent as Saddam.  Whilst I abhor his actions is it right that he carries this alone?\n\nOf course, in an instance like this people's gut reactions will think I'm a bleeding heart liberal.  But now imagine you're in a train carriage with two other people.  One gets up and brutally stabbing the other before jumping off the still moving train.  You're found bent over the body with blood on your hands.  The CCTV wasn't working and all the evidence points at you.  Do you still believe in the death penalty?\n\nThere've been cases where people have been sentenced to death despite having the mental age of a child and not knowing the difference between right and wrong - they're particularly tragic.  And then there are the options themselves as to the way you die.  Lethal injection etc.  They say that some methods are quicker than others.  The quickest, I understand, is meant to take almost immediate effect and yet in some US States where they offer this the doctor still does not declare the patient dead for 30 minutes, suggesting that it is not as quick as they claim. If it has to be then surely it should be by the quickest method possible.  As if someone is to die a slow death then are we not committing an act of torture leading to death?  Don't we become as bad as the person who's committed the crime?
453873
That right has always been forfeited, when have we ever legally had the choice to die? Our pets do, but we do not. Its just the law. It doesnt stop anyone from doing it though, so what does it really matter. Love Heidi
80282
Nope!!!! Nobody has a right to take a life...\nThat includes the person himself.
516696
well, i don't like to think that we have the right to take a human life.....on the other hand, my cousin was murdered and her assassin got 7 years.  He should have died.  After all he took her life.  Our prison system does not rehabilitate nor can it simply because the people inside are sociopaths.  so yeah, I'm for the death penalty and lethal injection is probably the least messy choice.
1017204
If you get a life sentence with a possibility of parole, then you can get out early. If you get a life sentence with no possibility of parole, then you serve the entire life sentence.\nPeople who do what the person you refer to did, should get the death penalty. I would be happy to be the executioner.
24795
No.  However it can seem harsh for certain types of crime such as drug smuggling, and therfore its application is a little extreme. Unfortunatley the pendulum has swung a little to far with respect to the application of the death penalty in Singapore. Other countries, such as Canada, that do not have the death penalty should consider it for murder and attempted murder. Here the pendulum has swung to far in the other direction. There has to be a balance so that a justice system, in any given country, is just. Meaning that the appropriate punishment is given for the crime.  Unfortunately, opponents of the death penalty fail to understand this simple principle.
64141
This issue has always been difficult for me.  Not the part about giving people a real say in what happens to them at the end of their life.  That to me is only natural.  It's always been my concern at how something like that could be abused, and also where the line is drawn that says, "Here you can choose to end your life and here you can't".  \n\nWe as a society have done such a marvelous job of finding ways to kill one another and yet we still can't adequately figure out how to best do it to ourselves.\n\nAs far as it being done legally, Oregon permits physician-assisted suicides.  Here is a link to the state's site on the subject.  I wish you peace and comfort as you struggle with how best to help your loved one.
684798
If "you" or I killed a man after running a stopsign while speeding, should "you" or I be in prison?  Depending on the circumstances, prison might be too harsh a punishment, but the point is it shouldn't matter your socio-economic status, if you do the crime, you "should" do the crime.
307335
Honestly, they say it's illegal but (United States) I havent actually seen anyone charged with anything if they attempted it and ended up not dying. \n It's probably said to be illegal because when you become that extremely depressed where ending your life seems the only option- you're probably not thinking as clearly as say, on an average day minus that depression.\n Also, you cant murder people- so it makes sense you cant murder yourself without doing something illegal...\n I do think some circumstances they should allow it for say, cancer patients who are close to death etc...but for others, well- like I said, I havent even heard of them actually charging them with anything.\n They just ask you questions and if you'd like to be committed to a mental care facility till you're less at-risk if you're already an adult. Probably because if they were to charge you with something- you'd be even more suicidal, haha.\n What I'm perplexed about is that there's people who are amazed that (at least in the US) they arent living as "free" here as they thought I suppose. Is it truly surprising it'd be illegal to run your own life and it's span?
103167
What you're forgetting is that tomorrow it could be you.  If you were accused of a crime, should we not give you any rights, just throw you straight in jail?  If you're just referring to people who have been convicted, which rights do you mean?  They don't have many.  You do have to remember that unless they got the death penalty, they are going to return to society some day.  You don't prepare someone for that by putting them in a hole and telling they they're not a citizen anymore.
1050338
Yes, you have every right to choose right now.\nso go ahead and do so.
512969
NO, NO, and NO. It is not for us to decide when we die or how we choose to die. That is God's decision and his alone. Of coarse that is just my belief and opinion but you asked. Doctors have taken an oath to preserve life, and to make patients comfortable, but when they choose to cross that line then they are breaking the oath that they have taken, which is wrong.  Suicide is wrong but I would never judge someone who chooses that path, I don't know where they are mentally, but if it is premeditated because of illness that can't be acceptable. We are suppose to endure to the end. Nothing less in God's eyes I feel is acceptable, but ultimately it is between a person and their maker.\n\n2 Cor. 1: 6 \n6 And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.\n\nSometimes we don't always understand things but all things are meant to bring us closer to our maker. In closing I wanted to include this story, I myself have gone through something very traumatic. I have experienced the refiners fire.\n\n The Silversmith\n\nMalachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver". \n \nThis verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the Character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study. That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire And let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to Hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest As to burn away all  the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver The entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed. The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" He smiled at her and answered, Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it" \n \nIf today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has His eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in You.
605948
Can I just choose death?
319455
Right to Die is probably going to be a big zero with so many Catholics on the Court.\nRemember in the U.S. you do NOT have a right to something (positive right), rather you have protection from government interference because the government is restrained by the Constitution (negative right).  The government has been found to have an interest in preventing suicides, and as long as rich people need miserable poor people to cut their grass that's unlikely to change.
132511
I don't think it is right the ends someone's life before it's thier time. Life should be respected at all levels. Everyone should respect life from the unborn to natural death. Abortion is wrong and so it the Death Penality.
1116444
I think that assisted suicide should be a right. I would rather have a medical professional helping me to die, rather then blow my brains all over with a gun or something and I think suicide should be a right. \n\nAs for the death penalty for abortion doctors, what are you nuts. Isn't there enough killing in the world without killing a doctor for performing a medical procedure.
222060
I am against the death penalty as it does not make any solution. When we are giving a person death penalty, we are doing the same bad thing that we can't. Nobody has any right to murder other, the final judgement is in hand of God. That we can do maximum against a criminal is to give him/her an imprisonment for several years.