You know, for an opinionated jerk like me who has an opinion about almost everything, this one kind of stumped me. Not so much by my inability to have an opinion, but rather, by being torn by two conflicting opinions.

A week ago, the US federal appeals court upheld Oregon's "Death With Dignity" act, thus defeating the challenge mounted by the US Attorney General John Ashcroft.

On the first of this month, the New York Times featured a woman by the name of Karen Janoch who lives in Eugene, Oregon. She was suffering from final stage liver cancer and was given only a few months to live. Chemotherapy did no good for her.

The writer who interviewed her was invited to witness her passing on and the whole scene was captured on camera and presented in a multimedia presentation.

I had always thought that this "right to die" issue was only meant to benefit those terminally ill patients lying comatose or brain dead in a hospital bed hooked up to a life-support system. However, here was this woman who was not only conscious, but was able to walk about and meet people. The only difference is that the cancer was killing her and there was no way for a medical miracle to turn that fact around.

In a lot of cultures, death and dying has a very negative connotation to it. For example, the Chinese culture finds talk of it to be very unlucky and the number "4" is usually avoided as it sounds like "die" in Mandarin and a few other Chinese dialects.

After all these millennias of human existence and despite the fact that dying is very much a part of the human condition, we still haven't come to grips with it. We still haven't really learnt to accept the inevitability of it. All who are born, dies one day; the only difference is when and how.

Ever since we were young, it's been drilled into our heads that suicide is wrong. "No matter how bad things seem, it will eventually get better," we are told. And yes, things either do get better or we learn how to cope or escape from it.

But what if one is stricken with a deadly disease and there is no curative or palliative medicine or therapy that can cure us, if not prolong our lives? What if we are told with great medical certainty that we will die within a month or two and before that, we will be so wrecked with pain that we will end our days comatose on a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of us? And what if we have already exhausted all avenues, methods, second (or third, fourth, fifth, etc) opinions and "miracle cures" that exist in this world?

Of course there are those who believe in miracles and cite the extremely small percentage of examples where a person on the brink of death is somehow miraculously cured. But then again, miracles don't always happen. If they do, they are no longer miracles.

Should we then be allowed to choose the time and manner of our own passing or must we respect the sanctity of life and only give up the ghost when our body finally releases it naturally?

Or will this "Death With Dignity" act open up a can of worms where abuses happen or set a legal precedent where suicide eventually is permitted and involuntary euthanasia is allowed?