Shorter Douthat: From My Privileged Position as a Healthy, White, Heterosexual, Wealthy Male, I Think People Having Control Over Their Own Bodies is Outrageous!
By Douthat applies the same tortured logic he uses to discuss abortion and gay marriage to euthanasia, promoting state sanction and imprisonment for those who would engage in assisted suicide without providing any concrete reason why. That he talks proudly about how Swiss doctor Ludwig Minelli would be in prison if he operated in the United States, he completely fails to note that like abortion and gay marriage, legalized euthanasia never leads to the moral decline of a nation like its critics claim in their jeremiads.
But as a 30-some year old rich white dude with no widely known health problems, Douthat believes he has every right to control what people do with their bodies. Not only does this put the lie to his columns about the problems of government regulations in other sectors of society, but it makes him both the ideal Republican and the ideal Beltway insider.