Palliative care has had decades to prove itself adequate. The simple fact that public support for end-of-life choice remains so strong (and arrests remain so infrequent) is enough to show that it is insufficient on its own.

There are very, very few people who are repugnant, the author is one.

It's not palliative care that's missing, but choice? I've had my back broken in five places, which collapsed trapping the spinal cord. Had I been offered a surgical solution as the most appropriate therapy? Instead of rehab which included daily manipulations and the sound of broken bones grinding away on each other. (crepitus)I was in a world of pain to the point where I was incapable of rational thought!

For those offering their pain filled therapy and elitist arrogant certainty I was just a bulging public servant looking for a holiday?

Finally after two weeks, my GP looked at the x rays he'd commissioned, then after telling me I'd never work again, sent me to a specialist neurosurgeon who recommended a surgical remedy.

It was a long and tedious operation that thankfully relieved some of the crippling pressure on the cord. But avoided the fusion I needed? I lived on painkillers that did bugger all unless taken with a muscle relaxant. (alcohol) Which I learned to depend on along with some of the addictive opioids and some character altering antidepressants (free samples) I was consuming.

My treatment was being financed by a pennywise and pound foolish compensation system. Spent millions saving hundreds. Finally a doctor recomended by a family friend, another doctor, performed the surgery I needed; a double fusion support by metal reinforcing, which effectively dealt with the suicidal pain and allowed me to dryout.

Today I find myself reluctant to take even a painkiller least I become addicted again. The injury cost me both my marriage and career and shortly thereafter my family.

It took eight years to have my day in court, which allowed the lawyers to spin it out until both I and legal aid had run out of liquid funds. Had euthanasia been an option at that time I wouldn't be here penning these lines but pushing up the daisies somewhere?

I don't know what future holds, but like anyone else I have dreams and hope, without which I'be first it the queue for the money saving government needle!
Alan B.

If I was murdered, then I wouldn't want my murderer to be jailed for it (they could still be jailed because they are deemed likely to kill others, but that's a different story). Having suffered the brutal loss of life through previous karma, I don't need to even further suffer the karma of making someone else miserable by imprisonment.

This being the case while I am healthy and eager to live on, how more so when I am ill and no longer desire to live!

The author is completely side-tracking the issue: while the care of people with pain and disability is a worthwhile topic, the issue at hand is the right of the state to punish others in my name.

Those who want to have the state's protection should be able to continue having it - after all, that's what states are for, their only legitimate reason to exist. Yet those who do not want the state to protect them should be able to opt out by formally declaring so (while they are still healthy, sane and able). While this is the MINIMUM decency required of any "protector", states would ideally be flexible enough to allow for selective protection, where people could opt-out only partially, ticking the boxes exactly when, how and against what they agree to be protected by the state.

I have deliberately not touched here on the morality or otherwise of euthanasia - because this is a private matter. The issue at hand is the immorality of the state when it imposes penalties on others in my name and against my wishes.

Yes yuyustu, Karma and bound to continue as an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth Karma, until the cycle is broken by a willingness to forgive our transgressors and ourselves for being both human and fallible!

That said, if folks are willing to risk their very lives trafficking drugs through a sovereign nation, where the cost of getting caught is a death sentence? Then give the get rich scheme away, it's just not worth it!

If one wants to play with fire, don't complain when one gets burnt.
Alan B.

The most glaring flaw I can see in Paul's argument is this:

If a support network was all we needed to alleviate suffering and obviate the need for assisted suicide, why would hospices offer painkillers? Shouldn't counseling and love be enough?