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My father died of a heart attack in his 50’s, while out on his own excercising.
His father died of stomach cancer over the course of two or three years.
How would you rather go?
Doc says, OK, the good news is, you’ve got a a few years left. The bad news is, you’re going to be sick and in pain the whole time. Who are we to say that that you shouldn’t have the ability to check yourself out? I’m not even talking about people who are irrational. At some point, suicide can be a rational choice (depending on your beliefs about the nature of God and the universe).
I think a rational person can decide to die. Heroes do it for others. The terminally ill can do it for themselves. There are people who say doctors can’t help them because they swore to “do no harm”, but if a patient asks you to end their suffering, I don’t think that qualifies as harm.
For people on the Right who say that it does, I think there’s two political Rights, the one that says people need to make their own private decisions free of government intervention, and the one that says that people should do what “conservatives” want them to.
As an added bonus, the terminally ill old person who elects to die costs me (a tax payer) less than the terminally ill old person who demands that they get the most expensive care possible to keep them alive in a hospital bed for another day, or month, or year. I see a clear line between allow doctor-assisted-suicide and requiring it. I also don’t think dying is the worst possible thing. Keeping your life at any cost (for lifes own sake) can cost a lot.