Thank you for the question.
I think we need to remember that perspective is everything. We also need to acknowledge the influence and ability of parents, of government and of health care providers to influence children in our country. If the perspective through suffering is that this suffering is going to get worse, and that unimaginable things might or could happen to you, and that your life might be very short, then that leads to despair. As Viktor Frankl once said, “Despair is suffering without meaning.”
If that's the perspective we're portraying to children who are suffering from terminal illness, then I can agree with you that this might lead to despair, which could include a request for medical assistance in dying, but then there's the perspective we experienced right from the very day Markus's oncologist told him there was nothing more they could do. When Markus asked him how long he had, the doctor gave him this answer: “We don't know. We're not going to focus on that. We're going to focus on you living every day that you have well. We're going to do everything we can to ensure that you can live every day you have well.”
That perspective does not lead to despair. That perspective does not lead to someone's request to ask a doctor to euthanize him or her.