Exactly Paul! And a very clear eyed view of the slippery slope waiting for legislators, who move to try and satisfy, the never ever satisfied?

Assisted suicide already exists and happens on a virtual daily basis in our larger urban hospitals, as pain management that eventually suppresses the life force? I would see changes to the law to decriminalize this outcome, which in some circles, is still regarded as murder?

Ditto abortion, even where carried out as a life saving medical procedure to protect the life of a mother! I have a sibling, who very nearly died with toxemia trying to carry a baby with completely incompatible tissue, full term.

She delivered a baby that very nearly killed her, that only survived hours as a consequence of the damage wrought by the mother's tissue rejecting immune system!

Had that pregnancy been terminated, the only changed outcome would have been for the mum, never ever able to fall pregnant ever again!

That said and back on topic. As long as folk can make a living will or issue a health directive. They can decide the quality of their death? Given a right to voluntary euthanize, sure to be abused?

As one commentator might have observed, where there's a will there's always a relative! And given that's so, sometimes putting an elderly relative down, might be kinder, than dispossessing them and incarcerating them in a nice but distant nursing home? One with a nice duck pond even, as well as unlock the assets of the elderly, for those that never ever earned it?

I recall a Gold Coast Grandmother who believed her cancer had returned and with great public fanfare and the assistance of Dr death committed assisted suicide? The subsequent autopsy revealed that her symptoms were the result of easily remedied multiple internal adhesion!

Now, I could recall even more inappropriate examples, but, given word limits, simply observe, euthanasia can never be used as a cure for (aged) depression!
Alan B.

Doctors have been assisting their patients to die for many years, simply by the provision of plenty of strong pain killers and sedatives, then never questioning any expected death if it happened earlier than anticipated.
Hell, my best friend had Motor Neuron Disease and her GP even gave her a self help pack, for when the situation became intolerable. One she never used because she discovered that even minimal life was better than no life at all.
People who want to die have managed to find ways to do so for thousands of years. These days, with the amount of drugs available ,it's even easier.

To make things fair, why don't we make it illegal for all pro-lifers to receive analgesics.

After all, they're the ones who keep asserting that all we need to eliminate the demand for aid in dying is love and care for everyone.

Fair, Amye Tan? We have new marine sourced painkillers that promise to be a thousand times more efficacious than morphine! The legalization of hemp as a pain management strategy is a positive step in the right direction, that doesn't include, callous indifference and or, officially sanctioned murder?

Our old folks have often spent their whole lives and every penny of income, trying to create a better more caring world? Not a recreated, Third Reich, where they can be put down like a dog?

Many of the obscenities, we witness in nursing homes, (and there are many more than are being reported?) May well have their cause nailed to inadequate care or hygiene; or so called carers, Amye?

It'd be useful if we could simply bury the evidence or mistakes or willful neglect, then call it humane Euthanasia, wouldn't it?

Now you run true to form and respond with a veritable truckload of elder abuse! Have a nice day!
Alan B.

Why do you call it murder, Alan? Do you also consider surgery to be assault?

Whether and when killing others can ever be moral is a very complex spiritual and metaphysical issue, so those who are not inclined need not be bothered with it. I will certainly not attempt to discuss it here.

What we do need to discuss here, is the concept as if certain people should be able to impose their principles over others.

The author expressed his fear that we might "abandon the principle that the law and our society's primary task is the protection of all citizens equally".

This "principle" of his OUGHT to be abandoned!

The only justification for having a state is because, assumingly, a group of people sought each-other's collective protection, making a protection-pact among them because they felt too weak to defend themselves by themselves (well we all know that it never happened, but that's the theory anyway).

While those who are happy with their freely-sought comrades' protection should be able to enjoy it, nobody has a right to "protect" any others who have never sought their protection: doing so is the characteristic of a Mafia!

If I am ever to be murdered, I do not want or approve the state (or anybody else) to punish my murderer in my name.