“I am not promoting euthanasia. I’m promoting leave me and mine the Hell alone.”
Very well said. This is what the concept of conservatism is supposed to be about — the freedom to make our own choices and be left alone.
I am single, in my sixties, no children. It’s possible, no, probable, that I may approach my own end with no one to care for me or to make decisions on my behalf. When that time comes, I want the freedom to decide for myself how to proceed, assuming I still have a small amount of competency to make such a decision. I will -hope for- palliative care, rather than any type of heroic life-support in which I (or no one related to me) will have a say.
I might even prefer an “accelerated end” to a prolonged period of decline without hope or anyone to even visit by my bedside. One can label it “assisted suicide”, or whatever one wishes. Who is it to dictate to me that I must suffer uncontrollable pain in my last days and hours, because the choice of an alternative is called something else?
Again — Lurker, you said it exactly right.
By the way, I find the postings from others on this thread both moving and illustrative. Thanks for taking the time to write so eloquently of your loved ones and sharing with us your personal experiences.
Unless that choice is to deal with your own death in your own way.
Or if that choice is to smoke an unapproved plant of some kind.
Then people who claim to want small government conservatism get all kinds of liberal on you faster than you can blink your eyes.