If you want to die a “natural death” screaming in agony that’s your business. But keep your nose the hell out of mine.
There is a difference between controlling pain and killing someone prematurely.
My mother in law died last summer after fighting metastatic lung cancer for over two years. Hers metastasized to her lower spine and sacrum, and she had multiple pathological fractures in her lower spine and sacrum. We kept her home and comfortable until 48 hours before she died.
Bone mets with pathological spine fractures is the textbook definition of severe intractable cancer pain, but we were able to keep her comfortable until her natural death, and without killing her prematurely.
Despite the hospice, whose only answer to pain was the pennies a dose liquid morphine and MS Contin.
We had to fight tooth and nail to get her proper pain control, and her hospice was refusing to pay for anything except morphine. We had to fight tooth and nail to get her proper hydration (i.e., an IV after she could no longer swallow, but complained of being severely thirsty.)
We’ve been there, done that. I’ve seen it, I’ve fought the system, I’ve seen the abuses.
The abuses are there. They are killing people prematurely every day by dehydration and terminal sedation.
These things are not a figment of family and friends’ imaginations, or a lack of understanding of evolving standards of end of life care.
Euthanasia is euthanasia, no matter how much verbal engineering the field may employ to protest otherwise.
And you don’t have to kill people to get adequate pain control.