In Wales:

huge concern that people have for elderly people who may find their lives being snuffed out against their wishes, and yet we treat our old people appallingly in life.  Dignity and respect appears to be off the menu

hardly an original thought, but isn't this entirely reminiscent of attitudes about abortion?

save the foetus!!!! possibly for a horrible life, but saved.

seems like fear of death is the main driver.

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

I had a discussion of this with my cousin in Tulsa a few years ago. She is a year older than I, not particularly "chruchy" but still generally a believer. At one point she responded that those decisions "were in God's hands". To which I responded that, from the way things seemed to work, either He didn't give a damn or He was doing a piss poor job. I doubt she was very shocked by my opinions, as my views about religion are similar to those of my father, who she knew and knew of.

I should probably check back with her on her attitudes today. My wife has long advocated legal euthanasia at will. An OD from sodium penathol is a whole lot more peaceful than about any other means imaginable. The true terror is a botched suicide that leaves one aware but helpless. A form of assisted suicide is legal in the state of Oregon and I suspect it will spread. But legalization will be opposed by the Catholic Church and most fundamentalists and, I have been told by the son of a suicide, that for observant Jews, suicide is one of the worst things they can do. I regard this shared belief that "God will decide" and that "life is good", regardless of the circumstances, as the biggest single culturally normative insanity of which I am aware.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."