Wishing you health, happiness and peace for a very long time to come. Look after yourself.

In places with legal euthanasia multiple doctors need to sign off, as well as family. It's very controlled and not the sort of thing that happens without good reason.

With the deterioration of the health care system in a lot countries people are afraid that these laws will be used to "fix" the healthcare system. Instead of helping people chose their end this gives administrations the possibilities of saving costs by pressuring patients into euthanasia programs.

If the systems worked great people might not have as much aversion to it.

Add to that the Abrahamic religions fighting against it as they consider killing yourself or helping somebody to die as a sin.

I think this makes politicians afraid of touching for fear of losing the next election. The topic probably loses them more votes currently than it gains.

I don’t want to live with dementia either. I bet the 50 million people in the world with it would rather not have it either.

How about option B? Cure the disease!

The woman in the article is only 71. It’s crazy that in 2024 we have no idea how to slow the disease enough so she gets another 10 years of quality life.

Because humans have rigid mental models, tradition and cultural inertia, and broadly speaking, an unhealthy relationship with death. It comes for us all, but few want to deal with the anxiety and feelings about sudden loss of existence, not to mention system incentives to prevent a more optimal outcome for human participants.

> I don’t want to live with conditions like dementia.

My mom doesn't recognize me since ten years, she cannot move, she's thin as she had just been liberated from a WWII nazi concentration camp. She cannot talk, she cannot move. She shows no emotions at all.

And yet the doctor refuses, on the excuse that she's fed with a spoon and not a syringe, to sign the papers allowing to euthanize her.

There's of course money involved too: the elder care home she's in gets a hefty rent each month. And so does the doctor.

I am very angry at this entire system. There's also, of course, a whole issue of legal paperwork / signatures, etc. that are problematic.

For, I'm sorry to say it: an empty shell. My mom is long gone. Let her body go.

Just fuck these insane laws and rules. It's a totally rotten system.

You cannot compare aborting a fetus which we do not yet classify as a full fledged human being with helping an adult commit suicide. If we did consider it a human being we would ban abortion as well. And technically we do not allow abortion in the last month except in exceptional cases.

Note as well that assisted suicide opens a bigger can of worms than abortion. For example unborn babies do not have accumulated wealth that you can inherit. The mother has no monetary incentive to abort the child. Parents however do often have accumulated wealth and unscrupulous kids have the incentive of finishing them off sooner.

Kind of incomparable issues, though the number for both should be ~50 by now (~52 if America had ever been remotely sensible about DC and PR).