Who can tell when it is right to die?

Organisations such as Exit International talk about “mercy killing”. The difficulty with using such rhetoric is that it permits us to take life into our own hands when, in many cases euthanasia is anything but a merciful end to painful suffering.

Many opponents of euthanasia would accept the position of the Catholic Church:

“When inevitable death is imminent in spite of the means used, it is permitted in conscience to take the decision to refuse forms of treatment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life.”

As well-meaning, even merciful as right to die advocates may seem on the surface, when considered more closely their arguments are far more concerned with cost-effective economic rationalism than the value of the human person.