This is a no brainer. I also support throat punches for bad puns.

Considering the lady who died recently had brain cancer, that's definitely a bad pun.

Too soon.

They are wrong and it should available. They shouldn't be throat punched.

Active euthanisia as in somebody else administers the lethal drug is legal in Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands?

Assisted suicide as in doctors prescribe you a drug and you administer it yourself is legal in aforementioned countries and Switzerland, Sweden and Germany?

In Switzerland assisted suicide is allowed as long as the assistant does not have selfish motives. So theoretically you could get help for whatever condition you are in. But doctors will be reluctant to prescribe such drugs. So you can go through organisations that have trusted doctors (my mom's boyfriend is one of those). The criteria of these organizations are something along the line of

You have to:

be of sound judgement, and
possess a minimum level of physical mobility (sufficient to self-administer the drug).
Because the co-operation of a Swiss medical doctor (physician) is absolutely vital in obtaining the required drug, further prerequisites mean that the person must have:

a disease which will lead to death (terminal illness), and/or
an unendurable incapacitating disability, and/or
unbearable and uncontrollable pain.

You don't have to live here to get an assisted suicide, US citizens could just fly in. So if you are rich enough, you can get it already.

I can think of another reason that might make it not a 'slam dunk.' What if someone going through expensive treatment that's draining their family's finances begins to feel guilt and/or pressure from the family to put an end to it all?

Maybe they feel guilty and, in reality, their family wants them to keep fighting and living and they don't care about the money.

I can imagine the possibility that this young woman, who became an important spokesperson for the Death with Dignity movement, might even have felt a bit of pressure to follow through with her decision, rather than risk the potential of becoming a tool for the opponents to assisted suicide.

I think she delayed her original date by a day, but what if she waited another week? Or a month? Would opponents have said, "See! She's having second thoughts..."

I don't know which side of this issue I agree with. I find the idea that the government knows what's best for me a bit nauseating, but I don't think it's that simple.

Totally agree.

You speak with much more authority than most though, so keep preaching.

Not sure if this was already discussed, but last month "prominent doctor" Ezekiel Emanuel had an article Why I Hope to Die at 75. He's basically saying at 75 he will have lived a full life and will not do anything to further prolong it.

So I was mostly agreeing with this and thinking somebody should really write a book that tries to address the culture of how we deal with end-of-life issues in this country. Not just for the obvious reduction of suffering, but also to save a huge amount of money. Literally the next day Atul Gawande was on the Daily Show promoting his new book Being Mortal. I haven't read it yet, but this excerpt is terrific.

I find the idea of an arbitrary age kind of weird.

I think part of that is just being provocative.

I thought of something more provocative, which is to start a movement ("80 and Out"?) where people can agree in advance to voluntary euthanasia at a certain age. It would make retirement planning so much easier.