Comment by sashank_1509

I’m young, but I’m at the age where I’ve seen many grandparents pass away and I must say, I support assisted suicide. The helplessness of the last stretch of your life, something that can last a couple of years, where you often need to help to even stand, doesn’t seem like a period of time worth living. Further modern medicines, in my opinion insane focus on extending life of the very old, compounds this situation to something much worse. I know of a relative who had 5 surgeries, 2 ICU admits in his final year, he was 84. First they were convinced his kidney was failing, then his liver, then they thought cancer and on an on that I couldn’t help but suspect whether this was a money grabbing scheme.

I do not know if this was ever widely practiced, but I think the ancient Indian ritual of going to the forest and starving to death in your last days is basically fine. It gives a dignified, sacred end to a life, while the modern medical sciences constant battle against the inevitable ends up distorting and deforming the last days of your life and forces you to leave without dignity clinging to the last vestiges of your humanity that’s left.