I had cancer and experienced pain, constant operations, tears of friends, inability to clean vomit and poop, and expenses. When fear of living outweighs fear of dying, and death is inevitable, death is accepted. Kevorkian (assisted suicide) was wrong to have killed the depressed, but right to have offered a painless escape to the terminally ill. Even if death is not imminent, but the quality of life is greatly diminished. California, Oregon, and numerous states have new laws allowing people, not governments, to decide suicide (if terminally ill).
I merely carried on, did what I had to do (immuno-therapy). I didn't feel good about amateur nurses jabbing needles in my arm for anesthetic for operations over a period of two hours (continuously every second or so).
All old people have earned the right to fear death. Yet, constant fear won't change the outcome. Every infant marches inevitably closer to death with every passing year--we all die. The best way to deal with it is to prepare (life insurance, funeral plot, take meds), but largely forget the grim reaper, and focus on enjoying the time that we have left. In a senior center, they are all old, yet having fun playing games and ignoring the specter of death.
Karen Ann Quinlan was brain dead (though some saw signs of brain activity). It was thought to be cruel to give her poison to instantly put her to sleep and die. The solution (thought humane by some, and thought inhumane by me) was to take her off of the breathing machine, not give her food or water. After days, she died (if conscience at all, she died suffering). Kevorkian was right in this case.
Charlatans offer cures to the terminally ill (while still living, have your head cut off and quick frozen). Yet, with modern technology, freezing human cells disrupts the membranes, causing death. They offer the idea that in the future they might be revived and put on an artificial body. The law should consider the procedure murder, and should consider the promises to be misleading.
I fear lovers of life more than death, itself. Idiots who torture the terminally ill to death, idiots who keep alive the dying regardless of pain, regardless of quality of life, or willingness to die, and idiots who think that they have to control the destiny of everyone.