Some of my family members have died to suicide. One violently after many people could not restrain them. One very much planned, very much like Pieter. Both found reasons to end their suffering, to take authoritative control over their own death. The suffering doesn't go away, it just takes another form in other people. It seems I'm the authoritarian lunatic, the psychopath, because I cannot see what separates euthanasia from every other tragic suicide.
* Is it because someone else performs the injection? Then what about suicide by cop, and cases where the patient injects herself?
* Is it because their family members join them in that initial feeling of peace following their decision (which suicide prevention pamphlets warn to watch for)?
* Is it because a cancer patient really is better off dead? Then so are many other seemingly-hopeless people, who are depressed, abandoned, and addicted. Is it because doctors agree that they are better off dead?
Nobody is pro-suffering, but sometimes we must suffer for the things that make us human. When we hear about deaths, aren't the most painful ones those where a person has said "this human life is not worth living"? No inanimate disease can say something so painful, can affirm it so permanently through willful action.
* Is it because someone else performs the injection? Then what about suicide by cop, and cases where the patient injects herself?
* Is it because their family members join them in that initial feeling of peace following their decision (which suicide prevention pamphlets warn to watch for)?
* Is it because a cancer patient really is better off dead? Then so are many other seemingly-hopeless people, who are depressed, abandoned, and addicted. Is it because doctors agree that they are better off dead?
Nobody is pro-suffering, but sometimes we must suffer for the things that make us human. When we hear about deaths, aren't the most painful ones those where a person has said "this human life is not worth living"? No inanimate disease can say something so painful, can affirm it so permanently through willful action.