Beginning of Essay
…the elderly patients…are comatose. They weigh practically nothing. Their skin hangs in heavy folds on their skeletons. ‘These patients must be fed through gastric tubes pushed down their throats,’ Dr. Peter Haemmerli explains, and that can make even coma ....

Middle of Essay
.... or practice of painlessly putting to death persons suffering from incurable conditions or diseases. The word “euthanasia” is generally also applied to cases in which the doctor withdraws the machines or drugs, which are keeping the patient alive, and thus allows the patient to die naturally. Euthanasia ends pain mercifully and easily. It is used when the pain of degradation of life or the pain of a terminal disease is greater than the pain of death. In these cases death is not the nightmare experienced in war, but rather an alternative to endless pain. “At times we must look at death as a welcome release from an untenable life. Death need not ....