To live or not to live: the choice is yours"What do we mean when we say 'life'? Do we mean the continuous functioning of the body? Of the brain? Or do we mean the continuous experience of the human being?" (Pridonoff, page 73). Many doctors are now practicing so-called physician-assisted suicide, which is when a doctor sets up a machine, but the patient actually kills himself. Euthanasia, on the other hand, is the act of the doctor killing the patient. There are two sides to the issue. One side is whether or not a person should be allowed to end their life. The other side of the question is, “who decides to end a life?” There is a difference between assisted suicide and euthanasia. The choice to have a doctor help you end the life of a terminally ill patient is a decision that the patient must make. Many people oppose medically assisted suicide due to their religious beliefs. Traditional Christian beliefs are that assisted suicide violates the natural desire to live, suicide harms other people, and life is a gift from God and God should be the only one capable of taking the life of a human being (Robinson, p. .2). However, there are also religious organizations that believe in physician-assisted suicide. One of these is the mainstream, liberal Christian denominations. They are in favor of choosing this form of assisted suicide (Robinson, page 7). Many of these beliefs push followers to choose life over death, unless life is supported by a machine (Edelheit, p.45). Doctor-assisted suicide for patients in great pain should not be illegal. Patients live every day wishing they could die to end their pain. Sigmund Freud suffered extraordinary pain from cancer. He whispered to his doctor, “This doesn't make sense anymore.” His doctor then injected him with a dose of morphine that killed him ("Assisted Suicide"). In this case, it was better to end his life. He was in so much pain that he no longer saw any reason to live. On the other hand, the decision to end one's life should be a difficult decision and not easy to implement ("Assisted Suicide"). Very few states have banned physician-assisted suicide. As a matter of fact, most states favor physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients expected to live less than six months (Cloud and Donnelly, p...