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Notes -
I don’t have any issue with Canada’s euthanasia system, and the only flaw people seem to note is that they get upset when someone they don’t think should choose to kill themselves does so. But again, depressives, people dealing with extreme loneliness etc have always killed themselves at disproportionate rates, I don’t consider it morally abhorrent to ease their pain more painlessly.
As someone who has suffered from bouts of depression and loneliness in my life, I’m glad that I had people around me who cared enough to check in and look after me. They didn’t simply refer me to a government euthanasia program. That would be morally abhorrent. I hope you would never suggest that to one of your own friends or family members.
I wouldn’t, but if after a long time it seemed intractable that they wanted to kill themselves, and they were in great pain, and I didn’t want them to suffer horrifically in e way in which people so often do in suicide [attempts], I would accept their decision to go to Dignitas or whatever. Would I raise it as a possibility? I don’t know, but it certainly isn’t inconceivable that I would.
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