A death of reason

I unwrapped the mug with its “amusing” caption and rolled my eyes, because I hate novelty ware in all its infinite ghastly guises. “Control freak,” it read. How the children laughed. I am independent, single minded, and proud, wanting to be neither a burden nor dependent.

The author Terry Pratchett is advocating some type of assisted suicide tribunal, because he fears a loss of control through dementia (BMJ 2010;340:c648, doi:10.1136/bmj.c648). And polls show that three quarters of the public support such a move. But assisted …