Would it be a good idea to legalize euthanasia* like today's ST suggests? The process sounds so easy:
"Say you are dying of an illness and your doctor pronounces that you have no more than three months to live. Worried that your last days will be racked with unbearable pain, you ask to die.
Two doctors certify that you are of sound mind and have made the request voluntarily. They administer you with a drug overdose. Several minutes later, you are dead."
That could be the problem. If it sounds too easy, it could be too easy. Do we really want life -- anyone's life -- to end so easily?
Perhaps I'm in no position to judge at this time, but I think that the right to die should be fought for and won, rather than being freely given by the sagely nods of two doctors' heads.
We fight for everything else in life, the right to be free, the right to live, the right to be independent, the right to acquire resources, and after having fought for all that to throw everything away to excercise the right to die seems rather like a waste of everybody's time and effort to win it all in the first place.
I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of the terminally ill. I'm ok with having a process in place that will ultimately get someone what they want. I'm just saying the process shouldn't be too easy (or as easy as what ST described).
Let's go case-by-case. Wanna die badly enough? Then prove how badly you want it: fight for your right to die, win it, then die with some real pride. Who knows? The process itself could be so arduous it might actually kill you, but that's what you wanted in the first place, isn't it? Sounds like win-win to me.
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