"well, you just have to bear it, because no-one's going to help you die."

In one sense, this is one of the stronger arguments *against* assisted suicide. It creates a situation in which compassion and a desire to end suffering says "so, let's kill this person," instead of "let's figure out what we can do to help this person."

Then again, I also know that there are situations in which there's an ugly mix of things. If there's no time for anything fancier for pain relief, it's possible that opiates sufficient to kill the pain will also depress respiration enough to cause death.

But I'd rather have a doctor trying to stop the pain and hasten death, rather than explicitly trying to hasten death to stop the pain.