Suicide

Suicide is a very touchy subject amongst humans, and there are some seriously heavy duty taboos surrounding it. In most societies, willfully killing another human is wrong except in very specific circumstances like an execution. Otherwise, it's murder. This would seem consistent, if killing someone might be allowable under the law and only under the law while it is absolutely forbidden elsewhere. War is probably allowable by law. Probably.

Now comes the idea of euthanasia. Killing a person to put them out of their misery is certainly unacceptable by that definition. They have not committed a crime, and really do have a right to live. Fair enough. However, the definition of killing is somewhat skewed. By definition, killing can be done through willful action or inaction. For example, if I encountered someone drowning in a well, it would probably be criminal for me to just let him die. It does seem worse, though, if I was the one who tossed him in in the first place.

Strangely enough, the same reasoning does not appear to hold true in the case of withholding treatment from a terminally ill patient. It has become euthanasia lite to just let someone die without medical care, while it remains criminal to give them a lethal injection. Yet if someone were actually conscious, it would likely be more torturous to let them waste to death (perhaps from thirst and starvation?). The common line drawn between the acceptability of withholding treatment is when the body is unable to sustain itself. However, is that not the case for any poor person, who is unable to get food for itself?