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One of the most important public policy debates today surrounds the issues of euthanasia and assisted suicide. The outcome of that debate will profoundly affect family relationships, interaction between doctors and patients, and concepts of basic ethical behavior. With so much at stake, more is needed than a duel of one-liners, slogans and sound bites. One way to distinguish euthanasia and assisted suicide is to look at the last act - the act without which …

…be killed to a person who is suicidal because of a lost business, neither should it permit people to be killed because they are in despair over their physical or emotional condition. With legalized euthanasia or assisted suicide, condemned killers would have more rights to have their lives protected than would vulnerable people who could be pressured and exploited into what amounts to capital punishment for the "crime" of being sick, old, disabled or dependent.