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Comment by pirate787 | Hacker News Reader

Its funny we don't have "legal" euthanasia but hospice stopping feeding and fluids, or overdosing painkillers, is a more horrible form of it.

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We do have ~~legal euthanasia~~ assisted suicide! Several countries and even some US states have some form of it! Just not widely advertised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_suicide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_suicide_in_the_United...

I think what OP might have been getting at is that in reality _every_ western country has assisted dying (the nurse will OD the patient on painkillers at a certain point), it's just not legally acknowledged everywhere or widely understood unless you have actually witnessed the end of life process.

Its not everywhere and its very sporadic, but there's many angels of mercy out there. We should not have to make nurses make the choice.

> We should not have to make nurses make the choice.

The nurse shouldn't be making the choice. That responsibility belongs to the family.

The family is likely to hate having to make the choice even more than the nurse does. Does this have any implications?

For the record, having suffered the effects of extreme dehydration before, if someone insists on aiding me in the process of dying (against my wishes) please get it over with quickly. End it with the morphine right off. Dehydration is a miserable process; the immediate misery of thirst aside, the delirium, paranoia, and irritability are not the least bit merciful to inflict on someone, in my personal experience.

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