Most of the solutions we have for people’s suffering at the end of their lives are rooted in a grudge match with life and with the body. They serve the conviction that people shouldn’t have to suffer, and so the headlong pursuit is for an end to suffering. When this pursuit fails, and it almost always does, the next best solution is to limit or end the awareness of suffering, by resorting to antidepressants and sedatives. We should stop long enough to ask one of the dumb, simple questions that are gold at a time like this: Will—not should—will our people inevitably suffer as their lives end?
...more
