Why Limit PAD to the Terminally Ill?

"While catching up on the recent Cato Unbound conversations, I just read through Howard Ball’s lead essay and Philip Nitschke’s response about physician assisted death. Ball argues that a terminally ill patient’s interest in autonomy or the alleviation of suffering can justify granting her legal access to deadly drugs. In these cases, Ball claims that medical practitioners can permissibly write prescriptions for deadly drugs as well, but he confines his argument to the terminally ill."