Isn euthanasia or assisted suicide sometimes the only way to relieve excruciating pain?
Quite the contrary. Euthanasia activists exploit the natural fear people have of suffering and dying. They often claim that, without euthanasia or assisted suicide, people will be forced to endure unbearable pain: During a radio debate, T. Patrick Hill (who was then an official of Choice in Dying and later served on the board of directors of the New York Citizens’ Committee on Health Care Decisions) stated that continuing to prohibit euthanasia would, in some circumstances, “abandon the patient to a horrifying death.” (61) Hill acknowledged that “even under the best circumstances active euthanasia is indeed a troubling issue.” But he said, “I do think there are very restricted circumstances where, in fact, it is the more humane thing to do rather than not to do. Because, not to do it would, as I say, be to abandon the patient to unbearable suffering, whether emotional suffering or physical suffering.” (62) Such irresponsible claims fail to recognize that virtually all pain can be elimi
