Suicide

Listened to Montel Williams this morning about his viewpoint on physician assisted suicide.  After experiencing the suicide of my daughter and listening to my husband's wishes to die I've become very firm in my beliefs on this subject and this program reinforced those beliefs.  Montel having gone through a situation that brought him to the brink of despair and has much the same feelings as I do.  I know that doctors take an oath to preserve life and sometimes are against assisted suicide.  Perhaps another type of organization needs to be set up to help people in this situation with guidelines that clearly defines the right to die.  When people are no longer able to care for themselves and have lost their dignity they need to be able to choose their destiny.  Of course, one guideline should be that the person's overall situation will not ever improve and will eventually die from their condition.  When we put an animal to sleep, it's gentle and humane.  Why shouldn't that be a critically ill person's choice whether to die or continue with the natural process of death.  The other side of the coin is the clinically depressed person.  They should not be given this option because their illness is treatable.  When my daughter died  it has almost destroyed this family.  At this time, our family is fractured.  Holidays are no longer celebrated without the feeling of someone missing, certain subjects are avoided because of the pain remembered, and each person is grieving at different levels, in different ways.  And then there's the big 'why'.  

In  closing, I do believe in assisted suicide, but with very strict guidelines.