Spiked hits the "ME ME ME" generation who want to kill themselves

A long essay on the narcissism behind the so called "assisted suicide" movement.

In Spiked (of all places).

Pharaoh had been a member of the Society for Old Age Rational Suicide (SOARS), a UK-based group that aims to change existing law to provide elderly, mentally competent individuals, who are suffering from various health problems, with a doctor’s assistance to die. Many of those who belong to these groups see themselves as rugged individuals who blaze their own paths. But this is also delusional. Rugged individualism would surely demand that you do the act yourself, rather than get government assistance to do it. Pharaoh was a nurse who surely knew how to ensure her own death without having to fly to Switzerland. But part of the plea for assisted suicide is always a plea for official validation of suffering.
The narcissist feels a constant need to be noticed, to be recognised, to have his or her feelings validated and find some reflection of his or her self in the world. If the narcissist is fearful, then the world must do something about it. The narcissist sees a world that does not feel their existential pain (after all, physical pain does not even feature in the top-five reasons why people in Oregon opt for assisted suicide) as the cause of that suffering.
If this is not narcissism, then why are Pharaoh and other assisted-suicide advocates so vocal about their need, not just to slip away quietly, but to have their decision validated by the state? The drive behind the assisted-suicide lobby is the idea that the world must mould itself around the perceived needs of ‘afflicted’ individuals.
None of this is meant as an attack on Pharaoh herself. (Although, as others have pointed out, her plea for people not to judge her decision might have been more convincing had she not courted so much publicity.) In truth, the impetus behind Pharaoh’s decision to take her own life is shared by more mainstream campaigners for assisted suicide.

and of course, once the taboo is lifted, lots of people will be offed who want to live, especially the poor and handicapped and minorities.

it is being pushed as a way to save money, as Pope John Paul II has pointed out bluntly in his encyclical.

Which is why the new Pope of the church of what's happening now is condemning air conditioning instead of bluntly defending life (yes he defends life in warm mushy statements that are deep inside his writings...)