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Yes, I can see that worry. But on the other hand, old people often don’t want to become a burden. In a way this is the result of better medical care and prolonged life, previous generations didn’t live so long and didn’t have these issues. Perhaps it’s time to modernise our morality.

We have 8 billion people on the planet, population growth is slowing and so people are having fewer children. The demographics tell us there will be a wave of greying populations sweeping the globe. That’s a lot of end-of-life suffering and strain on healthcare if we have to let them all die naturally.

Policymakers will have to face this question.

@Angus said:
Apparently my last post on the subject was deleted because it caused offence- maybe because it mentioned abortion.

@Angus I'm under the impression that when a being is 'ready' to enter this world or leave it, it all depends on Karma...Some spend a short time (succumbing to illness, disease, intentional or accidental taking of life) some a long time (eventually succumbing to old age, illness, disease, intentional or accidental taking of life) and some in between...it all depends on what accumulated Karma has in store...It can be full of surprises....

One is just a vibrating bundle of energy flux held together by Karmic glue.
Arriving and departing this Samsaric world, when our Karma package is through.

What do people think about the normalization of euthanasia?

Life necessitates the consumption of other life to exist.
For this Buddhist, the 1st precept is not an ideal that offers an escape from that truth.
It is a teaching that asks a practitioner to minimize the suffering caused by that necessity whenever possible. Otherwise, I'd be a Jain.

A practice that is having to address the question of euthanasia need only ask whether an individual considering euthanasia for themselves will result in more or less suffering for all concerned.

The answer is probably different for each case. Trying to reduce it to a black-and-white pronouncement of righteousness for everyone seems the more obvious breakage of the 1st precept that you expressed so much concern about.

It is not just the people of the "West" who seek to justify whatever they want.

The more traditional Buddhist teachings I've heard around pain at the end of life is that it offers an opportunity to purify much negative karma before moving on to the next life. If those are your beliefs it makes more sense to allow the end of life to occur naturally. Having those ideas will help relieve much of the mental anguish that also occurs from feeling like you're suffering needlessly. I wonder how you feel about removing someone from artificial life sustaining machines or stopping feeding someone who can't feed themselves?

Most people, don't have those beliefs though and unless you can conclusively demonstrate their reality to others on what grounds do you suggest to coerce them?

Its also a little like lying to protect someone from harm. Lying is negative karma, but in some cases it seems justified to prevent a greater harm.

So strictly speaking euthanasia does violate the first precept, but perhaps letting a terminally ill person die peacefully rather than in pain is more compassionate?

On the other hand, removing or diluting the sanctity of life may, down the road, lead to people being okay with something like someone killing themselves when they're going through a hard time.

I think most human lives are ended like that these days, @lobster … my stepfather had a bowel obstruction which wasn’t responding to treatment, and he wouldn’t have survived the required surgery. He would have died from this in 2-3 very painful weeks. Instead we decided to give him morphine and he slept for a week and then died in his sleep. A shorter life, but much less painful.

I worked in healthcare for years. My wife worked in healthcare her entire career until retiring a few weeks ago. In the critical care fields, ICU, CCU, Neurotrauma, etc it is an overwhelmingly widely held perspective among the caregivers that euthanasia should be much, much more widely available. These are people who see the prolonged suffering firsthand, and care for the patients and their families.

Every human life will end. Every single one. Euthanasia has no impact on that inevitable outcome; instead it compassionately establishes the how and when.

Cruelly and deliberately prolonging agony, pain, and suffering — How can we justify it?

Euthanasia is legal in Switzerland. Someone we knew from there, who was in constant nerve pain, decided after visiting us to end her constant pain. She had aready decided we wer not causal ... You think she should just suffer incurable pain?

We looked after my mother at home with Alzhiemers/Dementia until a week before her death in hospital. She could not drink and was barely responsive. Two doctors recommended taking her off drips and support. Me and my siblings agreed to this. We did not have to BUT she would never have wanted to be a burden. She was very well looked after by the NHS.

So to answer your question. Suffering is optional. Not for you? OK, don't!
Job done.

You are not offensive. Did you want everyone to suffer for your preferences? Just askin'.