I liken your questions to what anti-hunters ask me. Few of them have grown up in the country, and even fewer have seen what happens in those areas that don't allow hunting. On the other hand, I've seen whitetail deer starving, half-ripped apart or badly weakened.
Perhaps if I hadn't known things, I couldn't have lived with myself after shooting that deer last week. But I did know that, and I also realize that life is decisions. Not assisting a suicide doesn't make everything better--it just means the person has no option to choose what they want for their life.
From being close to the right-to-die movement, I've known people who have chosen to take their life under their own terms, rather than spend their last days in decline and resentment. I think that actually knowing such people, and realizing the issues that arise in such cases, would make many people support assisted-suicide initiatives.
Perhaps that's why many people who are trying to take away peoples' right of self-determination often try to portray "assisters" as monsters, demonizing them rather than recognizing that these people are often torn up inside, and only their compassion for the patient is what allows them to do the right thing. Our selfish motivations make us want to keep a person alive for our own needs, while it's the patients who have to deal with the downsides: pain, discomfort, and lack of control over their life paths.
I imagine that if I were ever in a situation of actively assisting a suicide, I would try to broaden my perspective beyond my own desires--but that doesn't mean it would be easy.
But then again, isn't that what loving someone is all about -- wanting what's best for them, fulfilling their desires, not just being greedy?
Many on this board would consider that line of argument to be horrific.
Sorry?
In case I wasn't clear, let me clarify: There are apparently so few cases of a PPROM pregnancy continuing on to 28 weeks that any information about the hows and whys of said condition are invaluable to perinatologists. Remembering, of course, that at the time of the visit, although there was a 99.9% chance of a stillborn, doctors didn't (and to this day do not)know enough about it, because THIS CONDITION IS RARE! And, rare as it is, there have been babies born alive, albeit with serious medical conditions.
So, how is that line of reasoning horrific?
Bottom line, suicide is not illegal. Or easy to carry out. And I believe it should stay that way.
You want to "assist" in a suicide, you do it at your own risk. I don't see any reason to change the laws - it is just too difficult after the fact to determine if that is truly what the deceased wanted.