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It is said that life is scared. It is also believed that life is a gift from God and it must be cherished! 

Humans believe that we have every right to protect our lives and that of others. No one wishes that someone he has shared many memories with should die. 

Even though we know death is inevitable, people still wished that no one dies and especially their loved one.

To protect lives, there is a sacred commandment as evident in the Holy Book which says 'thou shall not kill'. 

To further strengthen this rule, the government prohibit any man from taking the life of another man. It is believed that every man is 'equal' and all lives must be protected 

This rule was further extended to individuals. The same law prohibit anyone from taking his/her own life.

This law makes it so that anyone caught trying to take his/her own life would be jailed.

Despite this, people still go ahead to take others lives and in some cases, personal lives. It becomes so rampant these days that people find solution to their problems by taking their lives.

According to the Holy Books, anyone who commits suicide will be sent to hell fire no matter how holy he was before the incident.

So suicide is condemned in religion and at the same time by society. Despite this, people still commit it!

It appears many of them see it as a short cut to free themselves from one problem or the other. Whether their death was a pleasant or agonised one is left for them to say.

However, certain situations have raised ethical questions about suicide.  It should be noted that there is direct and assisted suicide. 

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A direct suicide is one committed solely by the person without the knowledge of anyone. 

Assisted  suicide is the one done with the aid of another person.

In ethics, focus is placed on the possible advantage of such an action. Let's look at some scenarios.

Someone with a terminal ailment who spends roughly million monthly to survive might decide to stop putting burden on his family and decide to call it a quit.

Someone who has a disease and needs millions to survive but feels excruciating pains every day might decide to call it a quit to free him/herself from the pain.

In these two cases, an assisted suicide could be initiated. The question now is, is the person justified to have carried out such act?

In the first instance, the person would be saving his family from spending money they would have used to better their lives and that of others on him. This action will save the family lots of money and same money could be channelled to various wonderful projects.

In the second instance, the family would feel they are saving their son/daughter from excruciating pains that he/she could not bear. That also saves them massive time they would have used soliciting for money to take care of their child's health.

In those cases, a situation ethicist weighs the outcome and it seems death saves both parties more stress, money and time.

If we remove religion from these cases, is it reasonable to say they died justly or for a just cause? Can it be argued that suicide in such two scenarios is permissible?   

In another way, should suicide be an option at all? If not, should the family have gone through the financial, physical and emotional stress that would have arose from trying to raise money and seeing their son/daughter in so much pain?

Or should we just stick with the general belief that at no point should suicide be an option even in pain, while suffering from a terminal disease?

What is your take on this?