Assisted suicide/euthanasia should be legal

I don't know why you keep saying that the process is arbitrary, because it isn't. People are not arbitrarily moved to hospice care. That is a much more involved and arduous process among the patient, family and doctors than some doctor simply saying "Ok, you're going to die now because I've arbitrarily made the decision to let you die without having some medical reason to back it up". Doctor shopping the likes of Rush Limbaugh hopping around trying to buy amounts of Oxycontin that would ordinarily kill an elephant only happens because such a thing is illegal. Once euthanasia was made legal, the only reason why a doctor would say no is because they medically don't fit a need for it or the doctor doesn't personally believe in it. I, personally, don't believe that a doctor should be allowed to deny someone requesting it. Doctors who do believe in physician-assisted suicide have thus far been forced to watch patients degenerate over long periods of time until a painful death, so why should doctors who don't believe in it be able to skirt their obligation to their patients and deny them the care they deserve? If there is doctor shopping to find someone who will assist someone who wouldn't fit the need for hospice care, then that will be illegal in the same way as doctor shopping for large quantities of controlled drugs is illegal now. It might happen regardless, but to say that small problem should derail euthanasia from becoming legal is ridiculous. If you do think euthanasia should be kept illegal because of the threat of doctor shopping, then we should re-evaluate a number of privileges that doctors have now that might potentially be shopped around for. Are you talking about doctorates or physicians? I take all my classes from Ph.D's, but none of them are physicians. If you are talking about all doctorates, then of course I wouldn't want your friend to help me or anyone commit suicide because they aren't an actual doctor. I wouldn't want my Public Policy professor helping anyone commit suicide. But actual doctors, with actual medical degrees, who actively practice medicine in a medical environment (so pretty much the "white coat" physician that everyone thinks of when you say "doctor) should be allowed to make that call. I figured that when we were talking about physician-assisted suicide, you knew I meant actual physicians and not anyone with just a doctorate. I might have been mistaken, but I doubt it. That's a great story about your dad, but he wouldn't have been able to make the call himself since he wasn't 18, so it doesn't fit in this debate. Is there a possibility that some of the people who would opt for euthanasia would have perhaps pulled out of their illness, such as with your dad...maybe. There are stories of people waking up one morning and no longer having cancer, but this rarely ever happens and should not be counted on to happen with any regularity. Not only would they have to miraculously recover, which almost never happens, but that person would also have to have actually selected euthanasia, which is a personal choice many people will not make. Their suicide would also would have had to happen before they had their miraculous recovery, which presumably would not be a same-day kind of procedure. All of these things happening would make such an occurance incredibly unlikely. Thus, national policy should not be based off of something as unlikely as that, especially since the decision would be based on the individual patient's decision. Death penalty supporters don't seem to be very deterred by the much more likely possibility of putting an innocent person to death, and that's when the state is forcing the issue on the individual.