"Right to die": No man (or woman) is an island

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7504.1388-c

BMJ 2005;330:1388-1389 (11 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7504.1388-c

Letter

"Right to die"

No man (or woman) is an island

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—John Donne would have had no intention, had hebeen writing today, of establishing a male norm when he wrote:"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a pieceof the continent, a part of the main." Grayling points out withgreat clarity how the right to life implicitly includes withinitself a right to a certain basic quality of life, and thereforea right to die if that quality is impossible.¹

My ethics teacher reminded me that where there is a right, thereis also a duty. Where there is a right to die, there is alsoa duty to live, and die, not just as an individual, but as apart of a web of all humanity, of all life, one can even argueas a part of the web of all being in the universe. My life,and my death, are . . . [Full text of this article]

Andrew G Rivett, senior clinical medical officer in health protection

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Health Protection Unit, Southampton SO16 4GX andrew.rivett@hiowha.nhs.uk