Comment by mcdonje

>He was Catholic, and wouldn't do assisted suicide.

I thought Jain the perspective shared in this comment is valuable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45548178

Well, not just the comment, but also the wikipedia article linked to in the comment.

Obviously, Jainism isn't Catholicism, but this part of the wikipedia article got me thinking:

>It is not considered a suicide by Jain scholars because it is not an act of passion, nor does it employ poisons or weapons.

Catholics are probably never going to think suicide is ok, but I wonder if they could come around to a definition of suicide that is more narrow and which excludes death-with-dignity. If they did make that adjustment, I would personally agree with their stance.

There is plenty of precedent for this legislation through definitional scoping in history in general, though I'm not an expert on Catholicism. The book "Legal systems very different from ours" talks about it, and gives examples. It's really the only option for any sort of change when you're dealing with decrees from a supernatural entity or an unchangeable part of a constitution.