Enjoy your manadatory execution when you're forty you old bastard.
Where along that spectrum will you draw the line? Is that even possible to describe without being needlessly cruel, like someone who lost the use of both hands due to a stroke is killed but someone who lost the use of one hand and one leg gets to live?
These sorts of decisions should be left in the hands of those who are most impacted by it: The person in question. I'm a supporter of more dignified end-of-life options, of people being able to opt-out of life-saving treatment if they think it's not worth the fuss or the outcome is undesirable.
There's still a huge difference between someone electing to die with dignity because their cancer treatment has a 10% chance of delaying the onset by a few years, but a 100% chance of making their life a living hell for the duration, and someone who's told they're too ill to live and has their life abruptly terminated.
I wouldn't want to live on life support. I'd rather my wife/kids get a nice (well managed) trust fund for the remaining savings and just go in peace early.
I had a coworker who was a hardcore Ayn Rand type who had a real harsh point of view like this, until his infant was born with a congenital heart defect that resulted in hospitalization for 3-4 months.
Frankly, my own experience gave me a similar perspective, although I was more "meh" on the issue. I had a serious back surgery at 25, and spent a lot of time in PT around people whose lives were falling apart due to expenses and lost wages. Meanwhile I had a great employer with generous benefits and leave. The trucker I was around was struggling to live with workers comp and disability coverage. He was selling most of his possessions to keep his house. It was chilling.
I'm actually hoping that our shared generational suffering with respect to our baby boomer parents makes us get our generations' butt in gear and do something about it.
Got to use all that unnecessary suffering for something positive :/
Yes, seriously.
He told us repeatedly while he was alive that he didn't want to be put in a home. He wanted to cut his grass, feed the birds and be left alone - and after the stroke there was no way he could do that. We respected his wishes and opted out of the feeding tube, but he essentially starved to death. No fluids, no food for two weeks. Those two weeks burnt up all of his savings.
Everyone in my family agrees that it'd be better if assisted suicide were legal. No starving, no pain - just a nitrogen mask, and you don't even know you're dying.
Frankly, I find your 'older-and-wiser' posturing disgusting. Obviously it should be their choice, but today it's not their choice - the government says they must suffer and starve to death.
edit for less meanness
The legalization of euthanasia raises some moral questions with respect to coercion and self-serving misrepresentation, but in cases like your grandfather's, where a decision has been made, those concerns no longer apply.
If we have to choose between helping someone who's already lived 70 years live another miserable 10 years in a hospital bed hooked up to a machine vs. helping a 30-40 year old person overcome cancer so they can go back to supporting their family, we should do the latter first. Just thinking off the top of my head maybe we could accomplish this with pricing, by making end of life care more expensive and using the cost to subsidize care for younger people.
Regardless, this is the way we should allow it. Eating up the savings of the dying seems particularly ghoulish when the wishes of the afflicted and their family are not respected.
[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/10/46997075...
The old die to make way and free up resources for the young. That's the way it's supposed to work.