The very public suicide Wednesday of a Placerville man suffering from severe emphysema raises prickly medical and ethical questions that many would prefer not to mull.
Most pointedly: How bad does the suffering have to get before a patient says, enough, and takes his life? And, how can a patient and medical provider manage terminal illness so that people aren't driven to take their own lives?
For Allan Leo Peters II, 64, those answers weren't forthcoming. He hanged himself from a local bridge after delivering a note to a local newspaper, calling his condition unbearable.
"My life has been drastically altered in the past few years," he wrote, "and I believe in euthanasia."
Read the complete story at sacbee.com
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