> you walk a way and leave them in hopeless situation, then delude yourself about how moral and empathetic you are by supporting the trapped person's choice to

> you walk a way and leave them in hopeless situation, then delude yourself about how moral and empathetic you are by supporting the trapped person's choice to kill themselves instead of starving to death in the hole (which is easier for you) > The underlying lack of of empathy is laundered through a twisted, myopic, absolutist appeal to individual rights and autonomy. Nope. The exact opposite argument makes as much sense as claiming that. I.e. there are a lot of helpless people out there. But “even though we don’t help them, we are ok because at least they can stay suffering on their own and we will not help them in any way at all.” That is, in fact, even worse than providing assistance for ending the lives of people who do not wish to live in suffering. And in both cases the fact is that the kind of argument and analogy you are presenting, and of which I provide the flip side, is nothing but a straw man. Here is the fact: People are suffering. We should do what we can to help end suffering. This includes helping people to end their lives if they wish to. It’s not a “cop out”. It’s widening the set of tools to help people who are suffering.