Kurdish Issue

Some people feel that their life is in their own hands and if they are terminally ill and do not want to suffer, they can end their own life. Assisted suicide or euthanasia is one way they can do it. The issue of assisted suicide has been a controversial one around the world for some time. Many think it is immoral and against the religious values, while others argue for the option to have a physician help to end his or her life painlessly. There is also another group of people who are terminally ill but trying to survive and keep their life longer as much as they can. These people usually spend their time in hospice and in an oncological unit.

Suicide is the act of ending one's own life. It is literally called as self killing. As a matter of fact, this act is considered a very complex work particularly with regard to the reasons. However, there are a many different reasons which can lead people to commit suicide. Nowadays, suicide has become an important subject all over the world. That not only because it is a dangerous phenomenon which has an unfavourable effect on any society, but also because of the dramatic increase in the number of people who died as a result of suicide. Over the past ten to twenty years a big issue has been made over a person's right to commit suicide or not. The American courts have had to deal with everything from assisted suicides to planned suicides. Also they had to deal with whether the constitution gives the American people the right to take their own lives or whether it says they have the power to allow someone else to take their lives. They have had to determine in some cases whether it was done for a reason such as insurance fraud.

Euthanasia or assisted suicide is a very sensitive topic of today's world. With the medical technology of today, it is possible to keep a person alive even if brain dead by the use of life support machines and other life sustaining equipment. The debate is that when a person is at a dead end, either in a coma or having been diagnosed with a terminal disease that ends in death, should that person be able to have the right to choose to die by an assisted suicide. In today's world, medical technology has advanced so much that it is now possible to sustain life through formerly life ending injuries or illnesses. An alternative to the years of suffering and pain is an assisted suicide.

There are mainly two reasons for people to commit suicide. One is if the patient is in an advanced terminal illness that is causing unbearable suffering to the individual. This is the most common reason to look for an early end. The other is if the person suffers from a grave physical handicap which is so restricting that the individual cannot tolerate such a limited existence. This is a fairly rare reason for suicide. Usually a person will either have in his/her living that in case they are unable to care or think for themselves that their closest relatives or spouse are to decide what is the best thing for him/her. Also a person cannot choose to end their life at the first diagnosis of a terminal disease. The person must seek treatment for the illness and show that medical help has been sought to cure or at least slow down the life-ending disease. Euthanasia should involve the whole family and relatives of the individual, it should not be done alone. There are some critics of euthanasia that a person should die when God says so. In this critiscm it is pointed out that God is a loving and caring being that would not want to see you in any pain and that he would not deny you entry into the gates of heaven if you came early to avoid pain and suffering. It is also said that a person under care of a hospice company can live out their last months in comfort and peace. This is not always true since in most cases near the last weeks of a persons life he/she is so drugged out by injections that they are unconscious. I doubt that is how most people would like to spend their last precious time on earth.

Public opinion for euthanasia and doctor assisted suicide has always been mixed. People are starting to see the advantages of euthanasia. General public believes that case of great pain and suffering deserve the right to choose euthanasia as an option to stop the pain. Most of the people believed that choice should be given to the patient. On the other case, there is a person who has an incurable disease that is not immediately life-threatening but causes that person to experience great suffering. The people who answered no may be thinking of treatment that has not been tried yet or treatment that may come in the future due to new technologies. During the last 20 years, technological advancement has increased more. People that have the no opinion on euthanasia may be thinking that the person may be saved by a sudden medical advancement. It would be terrible for a member of your family to take a dose of drugs given to them by a doctor. And next day, you will read from the magazines that a cure had been found a few days before. That will definitely make all people who are involved in such decision to be regret and sorrowful.

"In a study of suicide research in China, there are eight alteration of suicide behaviors which are, high depression symptom score, previous suicide attempt, acute stress at time of death, low quality of life, high chronic stress, sever interpersonal conflict in the two days before death, a blood relative with previous suicidal behavior and a friend or associate with previous suicidal behavior." (Source 3). In this research, sex, age and location of residence were also the determinants of suicidal behavior.

While people are suffering from pains for many reasons and approaching to commit suicide, the other group of people are fighting against the illnesses and trying to find ways to live. There are patients who are spending their time in a hospice and in an oncological unit. They spent their times with nurses, relatives or friends and health care professionals. In the 'Journal of Advanced Nursing by B. Rasmussen', there is a study on how patients spend their time in a hospice and in an oncological unit. Patients in a hospice and oncological unit were monitored day and night. About 6000 observations of patient activities were recorded. The findings show that terminally ill people were less alone, spending much of their time with their relatives. People who are in oncological unit were very lonely. Hospice patients spent an average of 128 minutes during the day and 58 minutes at night with nurses. Most patients needed help with their daily activities. So two third of the time, patients and nurses spend together in a day. These people spent very less time with other health care professionals. They mostly talk with the physicians and very seldom with priest, kitchen personnel and volunteers. People in hospice were with relatives on