When a person is diagnosed with an illness they will soon after be faced with many options and it will be necessary for them to make decisions concerning how they wish to spend the rest of their life. Many will choose to take treatments for their illness, if there are any available, even though the medication may cause certain unpleasant side effects. Sometimes you might find a person that wishes not to take any medication, rather just let nature have its way. In some sad cases, even if there is the option of treatment, the patient's body may be so over-taken by their disease that it would be of no help. It is common one of these patients, no matter which category they fall under, will request that their physician assist in ending their life quickly and painlessly rather than suffering through the rest of their days in agony. This is referred to as assisted suicide, a physician providing an ill, yet competent person with medication to aid in committing suicide. Assisted suicide, often referred to as euthanasia, is an important issue to discuss because there have not yet been any laws passed either allowing or forbidding it due to the fact that there is no majority opinion concerning the issue. The amount of proponents and opponents are nearly equal, according to recent polls. And it is a widely debated issue due to its involvement with moral and religious beliefs about who should have ultimate control over human life, medical practitioners and their ethics, and constitutional laws regarding the taking of one's life. .
Those who argue against assisted suicide typically do so as a result of their religious beliefs. The common Judeo-Christian opinion is that suicide is a sin, for a person committing such an act is taking their life out of God's hands and putting it into their own, and that any man that helps another kill himself is thought to be guilty of murder. However the opposing, non-religious standpoint is that a person's life lies in their own hands and the decision to shorten it is theirs for the making.
