My family since I was very young was inundated with illness and tragedy. The suffering if one could put a price tag on it would have been in the millions. I am voting yes, on the question of assisted suicide for the terminally ill. I know there are many arguments against it. I know I get a lot of glances that tell me they are not utterly for this option but I know how I feel and how I think.
I am not tied into any religious dogma or magical thinking. I do not think bad things happen to good people for any purpose nor do I think a magical being intervenes when he saves your child but lets an equally good child of someone else die. I am not torn by this question because I believe in the laws of nature, nature's DNA and nature's laws of physics. Even the Biblical Ecclesiastes says there is a time for every season; a time to be born and a time to die. Of that we are in agreement.
If an animal is euthanized when the suffering becomes enormous and incapable to reverse then we as animals should be able to do no less. I understand it is not always that simple BUT it is simple enough for me. Suffering and pain with no chance of amelioration is suffering for no purpose.
Remember the show Ben Casey from the 1960’s? It began with the wise aged Dr. Zorba played by Sam Jaffe writing symbols on a blackboard saying: Man, woman, birth, life, death, infinity. That is pretty much how I see it. There is a beginning and there is an end and we know it will happen to us all. Why not enjoy the life one has and when it ceases to be enjoyable but is inextricably lived with never-ending excruciating pain, end it. I am voting yes on Question 2.
