In 37 years as a cancer doctor, I've never had a patient who asked for euthanasia

Well, perhaps this doctor has never had a patient ask to be "euthanized", but I've seen it. My grandmother had metastatic lung cancer that had spread to her bones. She was in excruciating pain and begged us to give her something to kill her. When they gave her her next dose of morphine she thought she was getting her wish. She was furious when she woke up later in the day, she had expected to die.

She tried to starve herself to death by refusing to eat. The nursing home gave her more and more morphine. In the end we never knew what killed her: cancer, morphine or starvation. We should have been able to end her misery when she asked for it, instead of letting her suffer.

Well, perhaps this doctor has never had a patient ask to be "euthanized", but I've seen it.

Not sure he is against aiding those who are terminally ill actually. The way I read the article is that he would like to be able to overdose ("Ease the suffering") without a death panel. I think he is after a more "casual" (for lack of a better term) way to allow people to pass on, which at the moment is no longer doable without facing harsh punishments.

Matter of fact when talking to my mother's doctor he pointed out the need of a statement that my mother does not wish to be resuscitated. If she stopped breathing today they would have to try everything to keep her alive despite her having terminal cancer, which really makes one wonder what the point of this is. So the whole dying of a patient is over-regulated, which naturally to some degree serves as a safe guard against abuses, but makes it near impossible to help.