A 14-year-old girl suffering from cystic fibrosis has appealed to her country's president to allow her to undergo euthanasia to end her suffering.

Valentina Maureira sent the plea to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, catching the attention of the entire nation.

"Please authorize the injection so I can sleep forever," Maureira tells President Bachelet in a video posted online.

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The young teenager has suffered from the hereditary disease -- which mainly attacks the lungs, but also other organs -- since she was six months old.

Maureira's brother died of the same disease while her sister has been diagnosed as an asymptomatic carrier, meaning she could come down with the disease.

President Bachelet, however, turned down the ailing teenager because the current laws in Chile do not allow the government to agree to a request of such nature, said Presidential Spokesman Alvaro Elizalde.

Elizalde, however, said the government instead offered to improve the living conditions of the 14-year-old ailing teenager.

For his part, Chile's deputy health minister, Jaime Burrows, said "it's not possible to speed up death when one is suffering from such a disease."

But he said Chilean law does allow patients, or their legal guardians, to decline treatments that artificially prolong their lives.

The issue on euthanasia has been debated by countries around the world.

In China, a couple is pleading for the right to allow their ailing 16-month-old son to die.

The couple in eastern China's Anhui Province seeks to end the suffering of their son, who suffered severe brain damage in December when he got stuck on a conveyer belt in his father's factory.

The boy cannot move, talk or breathe on his own. Every three hours, his mother must inject milk into his stomach tube to feed him.

Doctors say his chances of recovery are almost nonexistent.

"We cannot bear to watch our son starving to death," said his father. The couple asked doctors and the civil affairs bureau of Huoqiu County if they could end the boy's suffering, but were firmly rejected. Euthanasia is illegal in China.

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