Kindness, compassion and tolerance are at the heart of Natural Humanist values, and they believe strongly that all human beings should have full freedom to choose how they live every part of their lives, and over how and when they die.
Consequently, they’re fully supportive of every human being having a legal right to end their own life, through suicide, which is illegal in some countries, or through carefully-monitored assisted-dying, for example, when somebody has dementia or a long-term health condition, long-term physical or emotional pain, or a disability which they themselves believe reduces their quality of life to such an extent, that they would prefer their life to end.
They support the use of ‘Living Wills’, which enable this basic human-right, and believe that any law requiring any human being to remain alive against their will, when they’re in pain, or are suffering psychologically, or no longer value their own life, is hugely immoral and abusive, as is denying them the least painful and distressing, and the most dignified and controlled way possible of ending their life, which is certain to be successful, or the right to choose to have assistance from a person, or people of their choice, including a Doctor, to safely and legally achieve this, in a dignified way.
Natural Humanists don’t believe in burial, preferring instead to use more environmentally responsible options, such as composting or cremation. They acknowledge that visits to graves by car add to a person’s carbon footprint long after their death and that burial sites are an irresponsible long-term use of potentially biodiverse land. They recognise that purchasing a small proportion of a large plot of land to bury composted or cremated remains, without any urns or containers, with a view to all of that larger plot of land becoming permanent biodiverse wilderness, is one of the most responsible options of all.