Like Kevin Drum, Ezra Klein finds Douthat's case against assisted suicide weak. But Klein remains conflicted:
[T]his article by Ezekiel Emanuel continues to give me pause. Emanuel shows that unbearable physical agony is almost never the reason patients give for seeking euthanasia. “My own recent study of cancer patients, conducted in Boston, reveals that those with pain are more likely than others to oppose physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia,” he writes.
“These patients are also more likely to say that they would ask to change doctors if their attending physician indicated that he or she had performed physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. No study has ever shown that pain plays a major role in motivating patient requests for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.” Depression and other forms of mental distress — which are, of course, a sort of pain — are by far the more common motivator.
Drum dismisses Emanuel's concerns.
The Dish 