The right to die or the right to kill?

I increasingly hear of assisted suicide as a favorable practice (Ten myths about assisted suicide, 17 December).

Like Kevin Yuill, I disagree wholeheartedly. Pre-Nazi Germany was a hotbed for practitioners of euthanasia. After Adolph Hitler's ascension, euthanasia became so epidemic and widespread that the loss of life has been impossible to asses accurately. These monsters argued merciful motives, yet their means became less and less merciful, as time went on. And the list of those who were eligible for euthanasia was ever-lengthening. One assumes that at first it was a voluntary thing, but that it extended rapidly to the medically evaluated worthless life. Many of those so classified were valuable geniuses of our age, who wanted to live and to be of service and value to humanity.

I don't deny that even I, in the event of all possible outs being exhausted, might contemplate ending my life. I doubt it, but if it ever came to that, then I'd prefer to have the right to take my own life than to be at the mercy of those whose authority foregoes my autonomy. Many crimes have been justified by just or exalted causes, and yet they remain crimes, no matter what pretty rhetoric adorns them. Euthanasia doesn't belong in a society based upon respect for human life. The moment society accepts euthanasia, it has abandoned respect for human life - that fundamental aspect of civilization, so precious and indispensable.

Dharma.