Medical art and science are entirely secular and serve a dual purpose: to lengthen life and to preserve or enhance its quality. Theoretically both aims are equally important, but arbitrary (and mainly sectarian) bias fostered an obsession to prolong life, no matter how inimical to its quality. The benefits of medicine permit its practitioners to perform acts that ordinarily are crimes. Thus we condone and even laud surgical mutilation…as well as the occasionally nearly lethal poisoning of chemotherapy. The resultant quality of life is always subordinate to the chief aim of prolonging it. Why shouldn’t the ranking sometimes be reversed? Why should we not just as readily condone and laud the chief aim of expunging—humanely, quickly, and with certainty—an intolerably low quality of individual life through a medical act ordinarily deemed to be homicide? The mere availability of the euthanasia option often improves the quality of, and even prolongs, the lives of many terminal or incurably suffering patients. Having such a choice seems to dissipate the panic of helplessness by assuring a modicum of personal control. Consequently the vast majority of patients go on to die “naturally” and with few complaints despite continued excruciating suffering. This greatly eases the burden of families and caretakers. There is no doubt that unfettered access to this option, coupled with unencumbered medical consultation, will dramatically improve the quality of life and drastically reduce the appalling suicide rate among the lonely, isolated elderly.