> If someone wants to die, let them fucking die.

That is not what the assisted suicide debate is about. The debate is about the right to kill someone who cannot do so themselves.

I’ve never thought of that as the debate. Not providing care is not killing someone. We already do plenty of that in the US. The debate is about giving someone a quick, painless death via the application of certain medications as opposed to letting someone waste away painfully.

Not to mention, it’s not exactly clear as to who is able to make that decision.

This is why I consider it “contentious”:

«On February 13, 2014, Belgium legalized euthanasia by lethal injection for children,» from [1].

«Even the controversial head of Belgium’s euthanasia commission is concerned that a well-known Belgian psychiatrist is allowing too many of her psychiatric patients to be euthananised,» from [2].

1: http://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/belgium/

2: https://www.bioedge.org/mobile/view/belgium-euthanasia-docto...

'The law states a child would have to be terminally ill, face "unbearable physical suffering" and make repeated requests to die - before euthanasia is considered. '

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26181615

Perhaps the law is not being applied this way, but I think the idea here is "this poor child is in agony with no hope of improvement and keeping them alive is torture in a sense" - not "let's take terminally ill children lightly"