Legalising euthanasia requires more than a simple change to the law. It represents a paradigm shift from an ethical and legal framework that declares the deliberate taking of life by private citizens (including medical professionals) as morally insupportable to one which allows relative and circumstantial evaluations to be made about different lives on a case-by-case basis.

Euthanasia can only be contemplated by putting aside the current legal recognition of the unique and infinite value of the human person, to instead embrace the acknowledgment that some lives are not worth living.