Time Essay: Deciding When Death Is Better Than Life

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Dr. Schur's decision was, in the end, relatively easy. More often, there are unavoidable uncertainties in both active and passive euthanasia. Doctors may disagree over a prognosis. A patient may be so depressed by pain that one day he wants out, while the next day, with some surcease, he has a renewed will to live. There is the problem of heirs who may be thinking more of the estate than of the patient when the time to pull the plug is discussed. Doctors will have to live with these gray areas, perhaps indefinitely. Attempts to legalize active euthanasia−under severe restrictions−have failed in the U.S. and Britain but will doubtless be revived. The fundamental question, however, is humane rather than legal. To die as Freud died should be the right Of Everyman.

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