Death with Dignity

I will do you the courtesy of assuming that you are up-to-date with current affaits. (Gross neologism?). Lord Joffe's bill to allow doctors to prescribe medicines enabling patients with terminal illnesses, in great pain, to end their lives will be debated in the Lords today. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and Dr Jonathan Sachs, a prominent Jewish religious representative, have both felt it necessary to display emetic opinions to the effect that we humans should be grateful to die in agony because to do so spares our relatives the onus of making any decision, or even to concur with our decision, to mitigate pain and misery. The argument seems to go ... ' It is deeply unfair to suggest that we healthy relatives should take any responsibility for the continued suffering, or otherwise, of our relative, because we are too squeamish to grant our relative surcease from agony. We want our government to insist that only god - whoever or whatever that metaphysical entity happens to be - has the credentials to deliver us from dreadful and hopeless agony. Yes, look very hard at that last bit... one day this will be you.
Incidentally, Jonathan Sachs' suggestion that assisted suicide is bad because of the guilt it might leave with relatives is so risible that I want to cry. Ironic, isn't it?