Because the state is stupid and self-righteous.
In the early 19th Century Herman Melville, the later so famous author, was in Liverpool as a sailor. He happened to find a mother and her children literally starving to death in a cellar. The idea of killing them out of mercy occured to him, but then he thought: "The English Crown wouldn't spend 10 shillings on feeding these poor people but it wouldn't hesitate a second to spend a thousand pounds to find me and drag me to court for putting them out of their misery."
That sums up the stupidity and heartlessness of the state perfectly both back then and to this very day.