Right to die?

[jurupa]

[The Tooth]

[Dobby]

[Dobby]

[RoyBatty]

I'm gonna swoop in here late in this game and continue the parallel someone made between this OP and drug prohibitions...

No one should be restricted from any activity, even up to and including self harm, so long as it will not harm anyone else in the process. Yes reasonable arguments should be made, but ultimately the decision should always rest in the hands of the warm body making such requests. As for suicide, when someone otherwise healthy sets out to die by their own hands, you can't punish this anyway, because dead is dead yes? Equally, and in relation to the OP, If someone has a restrictive, terminal, or painful medical condition that will never get easier, never be cured, and/or never come to remission, they should FREELY have readily available assistance from the same profession already treating that illness - to quietly and mercifully end needless suffering. To end suffering is an act of honor and mercy on the battlefield, yet to have a judge justify denying such empathy in a peaceful "free" society - even while the very suffering are literally begging for mercy? That's an abuse/overstepping of power, and it's an immoral judgment that should never be brought before any court, anywhere. It's no different from letting a soldier bleed out from a mortal wound, while he's begging you to put a bullet in his head to save needless agony.

Additionally, as was mentioned about drugs, should I want to do heroin, crack, meth, or sniff socks until I turn blue, it should be within my right as a free-thinking, rational human being to do so, and such activities should never be obstructed by laws as long as my compulsion for self harming activities will not incidentally harm anyone else. That this obvious truth is NOT the case today is exactly why the drug war epic failure is still polluting our collective conscience, infringing our civil rights, costing us billions, and incarcerating good people by the thousands. This sort of 'moral superiority complex' as it exists today is the only reason we live in such an insecure society, tolerating the continued and progressive assault on our liberties, empowering sociopaths by the thousands, e.t.c... All in the name of hypocrisies such as the drug laws and their consequent Draconian enforcement/surveillance tactics. It's this exact same brand of archaic, holier-than-thou, judgmental myopia running through the veins of government today that stops someone from making what should be a singular and hyper-personal decision (to live or die).

[Spider]

If the individual is sound of mind...then there is no question in my mind that they have every right kill themselves whenever they feel the urge. If its a medical situation, they should have every right to request a clean death, rather than be forced to suffer.

We don't even treat dogs so poorly as to force them to linger.