So here she was in dreadful distress, her possibility of any kind of enjoyable or even non-painful life absolutely finished, utterly demented, knowing it, and nothing to live for. If you had a sheep or a dog in that condition you’d be prosecuted for cruelty. But here the law-makers, without knowing her circumstances, had decided that *she herself* was unable to make the decision to end her misery.

It was also abusive for her daughter. The main burden fell on her to make every call as to medication, toileting, and moving her. At the end, everything done to the old lady was distressing to her. Yet my wife couldn’t just see her mother die of neglect, so she had to feed her, and water her, and toilet her, and decide everything and do it for her, and this was became increasingly painful and distressing to the old lady. So imagine the mental distress to my wife when at the end her mother said “I want to see a policeman to make sure you’re doing the right thing by me!”

So it makes me angry when I see the puffed-up know-it-alls of the government, paid for with money taken from the deceased, presuming to know better than everyone else, starting from the presumption that everyone’s relations are abusive, and never questioning for an instant that their own blundering arrogant central planning might be the cause of worse abuse.

Murder is against the law and there is no question that that is as it should be. But to ban *voluntary* euthanasia, when you do not and cannot know the circumstances of what you are talking about, is I think more abusive and culpable than the original problems you are trying to solve by interfering.

*Euthanasia takes advantage of the elderly and fails to accord them basic respect.*

Gawd Mischka, so then sticking me into a home one day, watching
and waiting until I gasp my last breathe, against my will, is
showing me basic respect?

Palliative care is big business for the Catholic Church. It would
be in their financial interest to fight against euthanasia all the
way. Do they have some association with the organisation
campaigning against euthanasia? Is the author perchance a Catholic?

The main argument against voluntary euthanasia seems to be describing situations whereby euthanasia is performed involuntarily, so is thus not an argument against voluntary euthanasia.

By all means employ any number of bureaucratic, medical, psychological hurdles to overcome to allow one to receive voluntary euthanasia. This would result in many being rejected, but then surely the ones who are approved by the government, 12 doctors, 15 psychologists, and the queen will be the ones who deserve it the most.

Lets start there and see how it goes.

Firstly, Yabby, please don't put words into my mouth. I said nothing about sticking someone in a home, etc.. Secondly, if you had read what I said without jumping to conclusions, you would see that I'm advocating a positive approach to elderly care instead of a negative one. Good palliative care should be the priority. What sort of answer is euthanasia to the problem of suffering?! We should try to alleviate suffering, not end life. Euthanasia is a cowardly and lazy way of dealing with the problem of inadequate palliative care.

You should also note that the Catholic Church does not oppose pain relief which has the side effect of ending the patient's life. If someone is in severe pain that can only be alleviated by a dose of morphine so high that there is a risk that the patient will die, the doctor can in good conscience administer that dose in consultation with the patient and their family. That's not euthanasia, that's just realistic palliative care. Your suggestion that the Catholic Church opposes euthanasia for financial gain is insulting. Protecting life is a fundamental teaching of the Catholic Church and it would be paradoxical for it to do otherwise.

There is nothing respectful about promoting the option to die while ignoring the option to live. Even when in pain (and I say this as someone with a chronic disease), there is so much to live for, and I object to the idea that we should reject life simply because of suffering. Life is full of suffering, but death is not the answer to it.

My mother in the last two years of her life suffered acute dementia and wanted to be "be put down" as she described it. There was no quality of life for her and she lived in misery until they eventually pulled all her feeding tubes and she took two weeks to die, sedated of course, of starvation in hospital. As a family decision we gave her brain to research for Alzheimers in the hope that new developments might be found to cure this terrible complaint. The religious and devout should think on these stories where palliative care is not always the answer.

The reason this is dismissed as an argument against voluntary euthanasia is because appropriate legislation would include enough checks and hurdles to ensure it couldn't happen.

If it were truly an issue, the author would provide examples of its incidence in those jurisdictions where euthanasia is legal.