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Personally, I think the better solution for this woman would have been far better pain medication. If it hurts too much to live, then we should do more so it doesn’t hurt too much.

Well, if I were in this situation, I wouldn't actively try to end my life (I think). But if my pain is such that the only way to control it is a dose which might end my life, so be it. I do realize that this decision isn't much different from the woman in the article, but it's different enough that I am comfortable with it, and my family would be comfortable with it too.

Am I the only one who sees this whole "party" as extremely self-centered? Command performance! Come and experience my death! Of course, don't we all want our loved ones with us as long as we can have them?

I don't know. I'm really struggling with what bothers me so much.

"I think the better solution for this woman would have been far better pain medication. If it hurts too much to live, then we should do more so it doesn’t hurt too much." Well said.

The key is her desire to be in charge. This woman was not in danger of being tortured to death by terrorists, nor was she likely to live many more days (not weeks, days). She and other people taking this path may be saving their loved ones the cost of extensive life support care and are for sure avoiding less suffering they perceive in their future.

At the heart of the euthanasia movement is the desire to be in charge and not try to face the issue of Whose universe is this? Oh, the dead-soul pushers of this out will serve platitudes of god's mercy in allowing this, or god has no desire for us to suffer uselessly, but they have no close relationship with the God Who chose to suffer the cross for our sanctification and Who witnessed the suffering of His martyrs and welcomed them into exultation. When man/woman cannot resolve the notion of suffering and why it happens, they are not likely to embrace any of it if they can 'be in charge'.

What is telling in this lopsided recounting of her last five hours is the lack of speculation as to what was happening to her soul/spirit during that coma:
1) Could she have been in utter torment, facing the sudden realization that there really is life after life and she had just sealed a fate worse than the suffering she sought to 'be master over'?
2) Could she on the other hand have been in a state of intensive learning, where Jesus was relating to her the things she could have sought even to her last breath and left this phase of life with an entirely better headstart on the next?
3) Or could she have been merely dying, jerking away into oblivion, gone forever from time and space and reality of any kind?

Christopher Hitchens and professor Dawkins would be partial to the last. But in the last analysis, it might be that she squandered a last chance for sanctification'. Christians like myself, tearing up as we read the tragedy of this woman's illustrated unbelief hope for the second of the above, but fear the first for her. ...

Yes, unbelief, for she chose to 'be in control' at the very time when she should have been submitting to the will of her Creator and God, by anticipating meeting face to face her Savior. And why would I assert that?... Because she proved her unbelief by demanding the ultimate measure of 'be in control'.

However, those who don’t value death would quickly impose this ethos on those who do not want to die.

There is no value in death and the "death with dignity" that Kevorkian's disciples preach is an illusion. My in-laws died in a small plane crash. I don't know all the gruesome details of how they were torn apart, but I know they were cremated primarily because of the condition of their bodies, and that my father-in-law was decapitated. They were probably screaming when they died, because they crashed after an entire wing came off while banking. Was that "dignified?" No, their lives were dignified--he was a Marine drill instructor and longterm power company lineman and she was a nurse, and they were one of the top three donors in their parish even though they had 8 kids.

Car crash victims don't die with dignity either. Dignity in death comes from how you face it, not from whether a guy pushes a needle in your arm.

Are you aware, BTW, that Osama bin Laden has said that he will defeat us is because his side values death and we value life?

Personally, I think the better solution for this woman would have been far better pain medication. If it hurts too much to live, then we should do more so it doesn’t hurt too much.

Since that option exists, why should we allow our medical system to be screwed with so some people can claim they're "dying with dignity?"

It is, after all, an easy way to empty expensive nursing homes and save money in socialized medicine.

Perhaps you can print out this poster, and display it to show the world your compassionate and fiscally conservative sentiments:

"This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the people 60,000 Reichmarks during his lifetime. People, that is your money. Read 'New People'., the monthly magazines of the race-political office of the NSDAP [Nazi Party]."