Recent letters concerning euthanasia confuse the issue with suicide. There is no law against suicide. Euthanasia is helping someone to kill themselves.
We already practice euthanasia. Pregnant women are given pre-natal scans. In hospital, food and water are routinely withheld from dying patients. 'Extra” doses of pain medication are often given to hurry the process.
The dog analogy so often used, is false. There are qualitative differences between a human and a dog. The suffering argument also ignores the fact that suffering will always be a part of dying.
The main argument seems to be 'each individual should have the right to decide for himself.” For 3000 years, western society held to the idea of absolute truth, which could be known, and applied to all. Only in the past 60 years has truth been associated (wrongly) with personal opinion and feeling. The idea that truth was a personal matter, decided by feelings, was a foreign one.
Really, the debate boils down to who is in charge. If there is a God, especially the Christian God, we have to answer to him, and euthanasia is not permissible. Unfortunately, I think euthanasia will be legalised within 20 years. God is dead, we are each god, and we will make our own rules.
F. Daniher, Omokoroa.