Would you help a friend or family member die if they were terminally ill and in extreme pain?
If it were legal to do so, yes, I would. What I would not do is sentence myself to life in prison for the sole purpose of softening the end for a friend or family member. It is very stressful to watch a loved one sink into pain, depression, and loss of themselves, which is why the laws about this are strict. It would be easy to put one’s own mind at ease at a cost greater than imagined.I happened one day to be in a home where a man was in the last stages of dying from cancer. His pain was excruciating and he was completely disconnected from the world around him. His wife, hating what she was watching, refused to give him his pain medications. With them he would have lucid moments and be able to eat. Without them, he would have neither. She said clearly that she wouldn’t kill him but hoped he might starve between visits from the hospice nurse who insisted on giving him the medications. I empathized with the woman. It’s a difficult position to be in, so the law removes the responsibility.I’m very much in favor of the “Death With Dignity” laws currently on the books in several states, and spoke at length with an old friend just before she accessed that option as she slowly faded away with ALS. The requirement that two or three doctors agree that the patient is terminal and will die painfully within a set period of time makes the choice less onerous and places the responsibility for the decision where it belongs, on the patient and his physicians.