What medicine has done today is allow the patient to medicate themselves by "pressing a button". The dose they receive of morphine is a safe dose, and even if the patient presses the button again and again, it will only dispense medications to a "prescribed" schedule and a "prescribed" dose.
The article specifically says that there are parents who wish to directly end the children's lives...
I'm pretty sure we're in agreement here. I was responding to Yaelle, who was concerned about pain management for a dying child. There's no moral offense in giving as much morphine as needed to stop the pain, even if it predictably will interfere with respiration and shorten life.
If the doctors or the parents had the suppression of respiration and thus the suppression of the child's life as their as their direct intention --- then that is murder.
What if the allowed dose does not reduce the pain?
I don’t understand why it matter if someone dies ten hours early in no pain versus ten hours later in tremendous pain.
I’ve now seen enough friends and relatives die that I see no beauty or grace in the suffering that comes at the end.