[Niall]

Originally Posted by angus58

I think in cases where there is absolutely no hope of recovery (as with my dad whose cancer had spread all over his body by the time he died), the humane and moral thing to do would have been to allow him to die a peaceful death by lethal injection, which he was begging for at times. What is moral or ethical about insisting someone must suffer to the bitter end?

I agree with that, no-one should ever have endure such pain. But what I'm saying is that the person would have to be 100% sure they want to go through with it and know everything that will happen and make sure they think about it long and hard. I think its unethical to make a decision like this for a person who cannot communicate that they are in unbearable pain as no-one could ever have an inkling as to how they feel (e.g if the person was in a coma?). What if they weren't feeling any pain for example? What if they were slowly getting better and about to wake up, but doctors speculated that they were in incredible pain and they should pull the plug?

Thats what I think anyway...