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Letters
Letters
Assistance in Dying • Earth to Trainer • To Hume Do You Refer? • Terror and Responsibility • What the f___? • On the surface of a crisis • (Un)”Warranted” Misidentification? • God blame them, every one • The Tyranny of Male Logic • Music and the Immortality of Mind • Eating Raw Flesh • Uncertainty and Hospitals
Assistance in Dying
DEAR EDITOR: It would be hard to improve on Jung’s shredding of Chappell’s panglossian casuistry, but knowing that I have incurable cancer gives the issue of assistance in dying a special meaning for me. I know approximately when, and exactly how, I will die. I will be 90 percent free of pain, but will have shrivelled to a fraction of my normal size and weight, lost all control of bodily functions, speech will be difficult and finally impossible, and I shall need constant turning to escape my own filth. Thanks to moralizers like Chappell, who make the laws for the rest of us, that will be my deteriorating condition until the truly bitter end. It is regrettable that Chappell cannot be at my bedside to explain once again how precious my life is, and about all the capacities and abilities that this life is going to make possible for me.
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