Choosing Not to Prolong Dying

摘要: Lucy Morgan is a 94-year-old patient being maintained in nursing home. Some years ago she suffered severe cerebral hemorrhage. She blind, largely deaf, and often semiconscious state. Mrs. an educated woman, the wife of former president Antioch College. About four wrote essay, entitled, “On Drinking Hemlock,” which pleaded for dignified simple way to choose die. Now she, like thousands other patients hospitals, rest homes, bedrooms throughout world, having her dying prolonged. What, before biological revolution with its technological gadgetry, would have been short peaceful exit now drawn out months or by unmitigated sometimes merciless intervention pencillin, pacemakers, polygraphs, tubes, tetracycline, transplantation.