Just a few months ago I listened to a sermon by a pastor who had traveled to a third world country. As he was walking to a village there was a person lying on the side of the road. The pastor had cancer at the time. I do not recall whether or not his condition was terminal.
The individual who was lying on some kind of blanket or cardboard was dying of cancer. No medication. No treatment. Just suffering. This persons asked the man if he had anything to take. The pastor gave this man his entire supply of medication. Due to the circumstances, he was unable to stay with the man.
For so many in this world, the process of dying is not only physically painful, but emotionally hopeless. That person, unless help came along other than a pastor providing him with temporary pain relief and/or the Lord granting him His divine mercy, died alone on that roadside.
I am thankful that my loved ones were able to benefit by modern medicine and society, and had been relieved of some of the pain before they died. Intentionallly administering an overdose of drugs, regardless whether the state law allows you to or not, is criminal because you play an instrumental role in the death of an individual.
You do realize that in the third world a lot of people ignore the people telling them to take only 1 or 2 capsules a day, and instead take far more at once than they should. They can kill themselves doing this with some of those medications. The pastor could have also very well killed the guy giving him those medications if this particular guy did that and scarfed down the meds at once.
Don’t get the impression I am against caring for the dying. I’m not. There’s obvious value in it. I don’t think if you’ve read what I wrote, could come to that conclusion.