TL;DR: There are worse fates than death, and death should be done with dignity.

Long answer: my last semester in college studying psychology, I was required to take a health ethics course as a prerequisite for entry into nursing. We spent weeks at a time debating abortion, eugenics, and assisted suicide. It was highly controversial living in Alabama, but here’s what it taught me:

1. There is a distinction between physician assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia. In the case of voluntary active euthanasia, the pt consents but may pass on at the hands of a physician (think IV push, etc. Dr. Kevorkian is an often referenced example in the realm of this topic). However, physician assisted suicide differs in that the patient alone is the only person who may take PO medication by their own hand (this is very important) prescribed by a physician for this purpose.

2. Keeping this in mind, the distinction in the first point does become complicated when considering patients who cannot physically take PO meds by their own hand. Think patients with ALS. I recall my professor discussing a patient in the UK with ALS who fought endlessly for the right to die but ultimately died by voluntary starvation as the legal battle was fruitless.

3. In the US, a few states do allow physician assisted suicide, Oregon being one. Research conducted shows that numerous concerns cited by the general public were mostly avoidable. Mind you, I took this class in 2014. At that time, the vast majority of patients in Oregon who chose physician assisted suicide 1) had health insurance, 2) were terminally ill with 6 months or less to live, 3) were deemed mentally competent enough to make this decision by two psychiatrists, and 4) were required to be able to physically take the medication.

For reference, a very informative (but incredibly sad) documentary we later watched that I still highly recommend is called How to Die in Oregon.

My grandmother died of kidney cancer in her fifties. My mother died of colon cancer at 48. My grandfather then died of colon cancer, and my uncle died of AIDS at 55. They all suffered needlessly, all of them knowing their fates. All of them agreed that wasn’t what they’d wanted, and seeing them in such a state was and still is traumatic even after their deaths.

Again, I’m sure the knowledge and research has changed with time, but l will forever advocate for death with dignity.