I assure you that this is untrue. There's a reason why people on the upper floors of the World Trade Center jumped from the windows, and it's not because they expected a soft landing. There are many, many things in this world worse than a peaceful death.

People failing to realize a truth doesn't make it less true.

Peaceful death is suicide, if chosen. Period.

Then suicide is preferable.

Stop using the word suicide as if it was an insult.

And I've seen enough suffering and death to know that not everybody shares your opinion. I've seen people who, when they were healthy, held opinions just like yours beg for death when their time had come.

Count your blessings that you've not known pain, fear, or panic like the dying do.

^^ That's an opinion, phrased as if it was a fact. It's a value judgement and nothing more. I respect that it's your opinion, but just because you fervently believe it doesn't make it objectively true.

If you wish to engage in a meaningful and productive conversation, you'll need to be more honest about separating your opinions from fact. I think that, underneath all the shouting, you have a very interesting take on the issue. I'd like to discuss it. But it's drowned out by your inability to recognize that other people can have a different -- and equally valid -- interpretation of what "quality of life" means.

(Also, no: You cannot "decide things" about excruciating pain. It takes over a person's ability to reason. Chronic, debilitating pain very much robs a person of their agency.)

The fact that you can identify what my opinion is and still not address it, preferring to have this semantic argument, is a great example of someone avoiding the conversation because they know they're in the wrong.

Actually it's a perfect example of the other kind of suicide, not due to permanent illness so much as temporary circumstances that could be resolved and lead to the person not wanting to do that. That is something for which friends, family, and medical professionals ought to intervene.

The South Tower was struck more obliquely leaving one intact stairwell, but this was difficult to locate and descend due to the huge quantities of thick, black, choking smoke. At least 600 people were unable to find an escape route before the tower collapsed. Most of these people would have likely died of smoke inhalation if the tower had not collapsed.

My reference to 9/11 was, in my opinion, entirely apposite. On that day, nearly 2,000 people were faced with no choice other than the manner of their death. Around 200 people chose to jump.

https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-09-02-jumpe...

I still think the number is likely nonzero (a word I chose to indicate it may not be a high number but it is not zero) and my earlier point is reenforced: they were forced into it by circumstance, and would have taken another path had it been on offer.

It was most certainly not a "peaceful death".

Edit: I will be honest, some of my reaction came emotionally from offense at the implication that theirs was somehow a "peaceful death" (your words). The USA Today piece you cited says it was officially called "homicide". That is accurate. Assisted suicide is a totally different thing.

And if that's truly your choice, you can choose it. In fact, as the article makes clear, your choice is the default one as things are now.

But you should understand that other people's choice might be different from yours, and you don't have to right to insist that they get your preferred treatment if they don't want it.

> there's always a way to keep going.

Did your grandfather die? I'm assuming he did, since you don't refer to him in the present tense. If so, doesn't that falsify this statement?

My grandma tried the chemo. She did die anyway, which I'm sure some folks will see as a reason that she never should have tried.

Doctors bullying patients seems like a problem regardless of the direction they're pushing them.