I agree that this needs to be discussed more frankly. A better choice of words on my part would have been "unpleasant" rather than "distasteful". In any case,

I agree that this needs to be discussed more frankly. A better choice of words on my part would have been "unpleasant" rather than "distasteful". In any case, I don't know of any modern political system in which this important issue can be addressed directly -- rather than letting each authority silently make decisions based on their own values. It's also worth noting that the absolute value of people's lives (in terms of what's spent) changes depending on who's doing the spending. This is the same as saying "money is worth progressively less as you get more of it". That's unlikely to make the topic more approachable.