Good Change, Bad Change

ODOT has almost remedied the main bottle neck in my trip to school. They installed two turn lanes (instead of one) at the last stop light on Hwy 34 before one hits Corvallis. That change is very much in order -- the way it was before made it necessary (at times) to disobey a traffic law in order to turn left at that light. Cars were sometimes backed up behind the proper turn lane as far as a designated turn spot for another road/lane. I am looking forward to speedier transits to school.

Oregon passed a law some time ago that allows "physician assisted suicide" in the state. "Some people" don't like that phrase -- they think the word "suicide" provides a negative connotation and would prefer a euphemism like "doctor-aided death." Changing the phrase could result in an increase in support for the law... just because of how people feel about the word "suicide".
Hmmm...
First, decisions should be made based on facts, not the way we feel about a word. Gut-based voting could easily go wrong. Describing an action (e.g. "physician assisted suicide") by other words does nothing to change its moral wrongness.
"Suicide" certainly does sound negative... but killing oneself is a negative thing. Might as well preserve the connotation and preserve some sense of the sanctity of human life. Of course, if government is supposed to operate based on society's moral standards, then they have no absolute morals to follow.