Apocarteresis is a form of suicide where a person stops taking food and/or water.

Now, I want to make it very clear that I have no intention of committing suicide anytime soon.

However, as the Buddha taught, old age, illness and death are part of life. The most dreadful thing is not, I believe, the disease itself or even death. It is the fact that in some countries (for legal reasons) doctors will insist in keeping patients alive when it would be compassionate to let the disease take its own course.

I am relatively young now, and healthy. Again, I have no desire to die soon. However, having witnessed my grandfather's unnecessarily protracted death, I would rather not leave my life in the hands of overzealous doctors come the time. On the other hand, I would want to avoid causing suffering and accumulating kamma with an unskillful act of death.

How is apocartheresis as a form of euthanasia viewed within Buddhism in cases of terminal illness?

Apocarteresis is a form of suicide where a person stops taking food and/or water.

Now, I want to make it very clear that I have no intention of committing suicide anytime soon.

However, as the Buddha taught, old age, illness and death are part of life.

I believe that the most dreadful thing is not the disease itself or even death, it is my experience that in some countries (for legal reasons) doctors will insist in keeping patients alive when it would be compassionate to let the disease take its own course.

I am relatively young now, and healthy. Again, I have no desire to die soon. However, having witnessed my grandfather's unnecessarily protracted death, I would rather not leave my life in the hands of overzealous doctors come the time. On the other hand, I would want to avoid causing suffering and accumulating kamma with an unskillful act of death.

How is apocartheresis as a form of euthanasia viewed within Buddhism in cases of terminal illness?